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SELECTED BY 



JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY, Ph.D. 

Professor and Head of the Department of English 
in the University of Chicago 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



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Copyright, 1909, by 
JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY 



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PRIETORS ■ BOSTON • U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

This volume and its companion, English Poetry, i 170-1892, were suggested some 
twelve years ago by the experience of Professors Bronson, Dodge, and myself witli an 
introductory course in English Literature in Brown University. Our plan was to have 
the students read Knglish classics in the same manner and spirit in which they would read 
interesting contemporary poems, novels, speeches, essays, etc., and then to discuss with 
them what they had read. No attention was given to linguistic puzzles, unessential allu- 
sions, or any other minutiae. Such things are of course a legitimate and indispensable 
part of the study of literature, but it seemed well not to confuse and defeat our principal 
aim by dealing with them in this course. Literary history, however, was not neglected, 
and care was taken to supply such information in regard to the setting of each piece in 
life or literature as seemed necessary for the interpretation of its subject, purpose, and 
method. 

The greatest difficulty we had to contend with was the lack of cheap texts. No single 
volume on the market contained what we needed, and separate texts, even when accessible 
at very low prices, cost in the aggregate more than students could afford to pay. I there- 
fore attempted to bring together in the volume of English Poetry such a collection of poems, 
important either historically or for their intrinsic merits, as would permit every teacher to 
make his own selection in accordance with his tastes and the needs of his class. The 
present volume is, in like manner, intended to be used by teachers as a storehouse or treas- 
ury of prose. 

In the Preface of the volume of poetry, I tried to make it clear that I did not suppose 
that any teacher would require his pupils to read all the poems contained in it. This 
would indeed be absurd. That volume contains between fifty-five and sixty thousand 
lines, and, as there are in the ordinary school year only about thirty weeks of three recita- 
tions each, the pupil would have to read more than six hundred lines — between fifteen 
and twenty pages of an ordinary book' — for each recitation. Yet some teachers have 
attempted this and have been surprised to find the attempt unsuccessful. It will be well 
to bear in mind that this prose book, also, contains much more than at first sight it may 
seem to contain. Each page, it may be noted, contains about as much as three ordinary 
octavo pages of medium size. 

As to the manner in which the choice shall be made for the use of a class, the teacher 
may of course confine the work to as few authors as he chooses, or may require only the 
most interesting parts of the long selections, or may in both ways reduce to reasonable 
limits the amount of reading required. Some teachers will wish a large number of short 
passages illustrating the characteristics of as many authors as possible; others will prefer 
to study a smaller number of authors in selections long enough to show, not merely what 
heights of excellence each writer could occasionally attain, but also what qualities and what 
degree of sustained power each possessed. This volume, it is believed, provides materials 
for both kinds of study. 



LV 



PREFACE 



It need hardly be said that, after leaving the earlier periods of English Literature, in 
which unknown words and forms confront the reader in every sentence, the main diffi- 
culties that a student meets in reading the English classics arise not so much from internal 
as from external causes. And these can easily be removed. Simple and clear presenta- 
tion by the teacher of the theme of the writer, of his attitude toward his theme, of the 
relations of writer and theme to contemporaneous life and art, and of other matters neces- 
sary to intelligent reading, should precede the student's reading of each piece, whether of 
prose or verse. Great literature is usually great no less because of its content than be- 
cause of its form, and it will generally be found that students are prepared to appreciate 
fine thoughts before they are able to understand grace or beauty of form in literature. And 
certainly, if, as Spenser tells us, 

Soul is form and doth the body make, 

we must understand the soul, the content, and aim, of a piece of literature before we can 
judge whether or not it has created for itself an appropriate and beautiful body or form. 
To expect a student who has not the knowledge implied or assumed in a bit of prose or 
verse to read it sympathetically is as grave an error as that ancient one — now happily 
abandoned — of causing students of English composition to spin out of their entrails vast 
webs of speculation upon subjects lying far beyond their knowledge or experience. If the 
teacher will attempt to make every selection as real and vital to his students as if it were 
concerned with some subject of the life of to-day, the study of English Literature will be- 
come a new and interesting thing for himself as well as for his pupils. And although this 
is theoretically a counsel of perfection not easily fulfilled, it will be found in practice not 
difficult to secure a large measure of success. 

In this volume, as in its predecessor, the remarks in the Introduction are not intended 
to take the place of a history of English Literature. Here and there they furnish informa- 
tion not usually found in elementary text-books; here and there they have not even that 
excuse for existence, being often merely hints or suggestions or explanations which the 
editor wished to make; in a few instances it may be thought that their proper place is the 
Preface rather than the Introduction. 

In printing the earlier texts — that is, all before Sidney's Arcadia — the old spelling is 
preserved, except that/, />, 3, i, j, u, v, have been reduced to modern forms and usage. 
Such inconsistencies as appear are due to variations in the texts themselves or to variant 
editorial methods in the standard editions. The punctuation of the earlier texts has been 
modernized, sometimes by me, sometimes by the editor whom I follow. 

In the later texts, the spelling and punctuation of standard editions has usually been 
retained, even where they differ from modern usage; but in a few instances, where the 
older punctuation was not only faulty but seriously misleading, I have not scrupled to 
change it. In no such instance, however, was there any doubt as to the author's meaning. 

The division of the book into periods is of course not altogether satisfactory. Not to 
mention general difficulties, Ben Jonson's relations with Shakspere and Bacon induced 
me to put him in the same period with Bacon, though it would doubtless have been better 
to put both him and Dekker in the following period. Again, in the Nineteenth Century, 
it seems hardly justifiable to put Stevenson in the same period with Newman, Borrow, 
Thackeray, and Dickens; but I found that I had room for him and him only among the 
departed masters of his generation, and it seemed undesirable to put him alone in a sepa- 
rate division. 

No attempt has been made to apportion the space given to a writer in close accordance 
with his importance. My plan originally was that every piece, whether essay, letter, speech, 
or chapter of a book, should be given as a whole composition, in its entirety. But lack of 



PREFACE v 

space made it necessary to make many cuts, — though none, I hope, that affect the essen- 
tial qualities of any selection or interfere with its intelligibility. The attempt to present 
whole selections rather than brilliant scraps of course made proportional representation 
impossible, and the cuts that were made did not better the adjustment, as they were made 
where they would cause the least loss of formal and material excellences. 

In spite of careful calculations, far too large an amount of copy was sent to the printer. 
Nor did such cutting as is mentioned above suffice to reduce it to the necessary limits. It 
became necessary, while the book was going through the press, to omit several writers 
altogether, — some of them, no doubt, writers whom I shall be criticised for omitting. I 
can only say that my regret is perhaps greater than that which will be felt by any one else. 
I now feel that, as I was obliged to omit Henley and some other recent writers, it might 
have been well to omit Stevenson also and let the book end with Walter Pater. 

The selection from the so-called Mabinogion in the Appendix was added at the sug- 
gestion of Professor Cunliffe of the University of Wisconsin. Many teachers will no 
doubt wish to use it in connection with the study of mediaeval romances, and will join me 
in thanks to Professor Cunliffe. 

For aid in collating the copy for the printer and in reading proofs I am indebted to my 
sister, Annie Manly. 

J. M. M. 



CONTENTS 



EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Introduction xi 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (extract from 
An. 1137) 

(by a Monk of Peterborough) 1 

An Old English Homily (extract) 

(by an unknown author) 1 

Richard Poore (?), Bishop of Chichester, 
Salisbury, and Durham 
The Ancren Riwle (Speech; Nuns May 

Keep No Beast but a Cat) 2 

English Proclamation of Henry III 4 

Richard Rolle (of Hampole) 

Epistle III: The Commandment of Love 

to God 5 

Sir John Mandeville 

The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John 
Maundevile, Kt., Capp. IV, XVII, 

XXVII 6 

John Wiclif 

The Gospel of Mathevv (Both versions) ... 9 
John de Trevisa 

Higden's Polychronicon, Bk. I, Cap. LIX 11 
Geoffrey Chaucer 

A Treatise on the Astrolabe; Prologus. . . . 12 
Translation of Boethius, Bk. Ill, Prose IX, 

and Metre IX 13 

Reginald Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph, and 
Chichester 
The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of 
the Clergy, Pt. I, Cap. XIII 16 

THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

Sir Thomas Malory 

Le Morte Darthur, Bk. XXI, Capp. IV- 

VI 18 

Whliam Caxton 

Preface to the Booke of Eneydos 21 

Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners 

The Cronvcle of Svr John Froissart, Capp. 
CCCLXXXlil, CCCLXXXIIII 22 

THE TRANSITION TO MODERN TIMES 

Sir Thomas More 

A Dialogue of Svr Thomas More, Kt., Bk. 

Ill, Cap. XVI 29 

William Tyndale 

The Gospell of S. Mathew, Cap. V 34 

Hugh Latimer 

The First Sermon before King Edward 
VI 36 



Roger Ascham 

The Scholemaster : The First Booke for 

the Youth 38 

John Foxe 

Acts and Monuments of these Latter and 
Perillous Dayes: The Behaviour of 
Dr. Ridley and Master Latimer at 
the Time of their Death 41 

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 

Sir Philip Sidney 

Arcadia (from Bk. I) 45 

Richard Hooker 

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (ex- 
tract from Bk. I) 54 

John Lyly 

Euphues and his England (extract) 57 

Thomas Lodge 

Rosalynde : Euphues' Golden Legacy (ex- 
tract) 60 

Robert Greene 

A Groat's Worth of Wit, bought with a 

Million of Repentance (extract) 64 

The Art of Cony-Catching (extract) 67 

Greene's Never Too Late; The Palmer's 

Tale (extract) 69 

Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans 

Essays (I, Of Truth, p. 74; II, Of Death, 
p. 75; IV, Of Revenge, 75; V, Of 
Adversity, p. 76; VIII, Of Marriage 
and Single Life, p. 76; X, Of Love, 
p. 77; XI, Of Great Place, p. 78; 
XVI, Of Atheism, p. 79; XXIII, Of 
Wisdom for a Man's Self, p. 80 ; XXV, 
Of Dispatch, p. 81; XXVII, Of 
Friendship, p. 82; XLII, Of Youth 
and Age, p. 85; XLIII, Of Beauty, 

P- 85) 74 

Thomas Nashe 

The Unfortunate Traveller (or Jack Wil- 
ton) (extract) 86 

Thomas Dekker 

The Gull's Hornbook, Capp. VI-VIII. ... 89 
Ben Jonson 

Timber: or Discoveries made upon Men 
and Matter (LXIV, De Shakespeare 
Nostrati, p. 94; LXXI, Dominus 
Verulamius, p. 94; C, De Bonis et 
Malis; De Innocentia, p. 95; CXV, 
De Stilo, et Optimo Scribendi Genere, 
P- 95) 94 



\ 111 



CONTENTS 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

Robert Burton 

TheAnatomy of Melancholy, I't. [II, Sec. 

1 1, Mem. 1, Subs. 1 97 

Thomas I [obbes 

Leviathan, n. I, Cap. Mil (< )f the 
Natural Condition <>f Mankind) 102 

1/AAK W*A] ION 

The Complete Angler (extract) 104 

Sib Thomas Browne 

Religio Medic i: ( lharity in 

Hydriotaphia: I'm Burial, Chap. V 115 

Thou \s Fui i br 

The Holy State, Bk. II. Chap. XXII: 
The 1 .iir of Sir Francis l >rake 117 

John M 11 ton 

( )f Education 120 

Areopagitica : A Speech for tin- Liberty 
of Unlicensed Printing (extract) 1 16 

J I U'IMV I' \M OB 

The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, 
Chap. I, Sec. II 136 

John Ucnyan 

Tin- Pilgrim's Progress: The Fight with 
Apollyon (p. [39); Vanity Fair 

(l»- 'lO 139 

Sib We 1 1 \m Timi'i !■■ 

Observations upon the United Provinces 
of tin- Netherlands, Chap. VI 1 1 143 

John DRYDEN 

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (extract).... 146 

John LOCKE 

Of tin- Conduct of tin' Understanding 

(extract) 163 

Samuel Pepys 

His Diary (extract) 168 

Robert South 

A Sermon: Of the Fatal [mposture and 
Force of Words (extract) 1 73 

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

n wiii 1 M 1 ,m 

The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the 
Famous Captain Singleton (extract) . 176 
Jon mm \\ Swot 

The Talr of a Tub: The Preface and 
Sections [I and IX 184 

A Modest Proposal 193 

\nihony \siimv Cootkk, Kail of Shaftes- 
bury 

Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opin- 
ions, Times, etc., I't. Ill, Sec. III... 107 
Joseph Addison 

TheSpectatoi ^ No. to, Aims of the Spec- 
tator, p. 198; 26, Thoughts in west 
minster Abbey, p. 300; 08, The 
Head Dress, aoi; 150, The Vision of 

Mil a, p. B03; 584, Hilpa and Slia 

lum, p. 205; 585, The Same, con- 
tinued, p. 20(>) I98 

Sir Rich \ki> Steei e 

The Tatler (Nos. 82, 95, 167,264) 207 



Sik Richard Steele (Continued) 

The Spectator (No. 11) 214 

c.KOKc.K Berkeley, Bishop of Cloy ne 

A Proposal lor a College to be erected in 

the Summer Islands 216 

S VMXJE1 Rich IRDSON 

The History of Clarissa Harlowe, Letter 

XVI... 221 

HENRt Fielding 

Tom Jones, Bk. I, Chap. I; Bk. II, 
Chap, l; Bk. V, Chap. I; Hk. VIII, 

Chap. I; Bk. X, Chap. 1 226 

Samuel Johnson 

Congreve 234 

The Rambler (Nos. 6S, 69) 239 

David Hume 

An Inquiry concerning the Principles of 

Morals, Sec Y, I't. II 243 

Laurence Sterne 

Tristram Shandy, Vol. VIII, Chaps. 

Will XXX 247 

TOIU as Smoi LETT 

Humphry Clinker (Letter to Sir Watkin 

Phillips) 251 

Oliver c-oldsmith 

Letters from a Citizen of the World to 
his Friends in the East, XXI, XXVI- 

XXX 255 

Edmund Burke 

Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts 

(extract) 267 

Reflections on the Revolution in France 

(extract) 270 

James Macpherson (?) 

The Foems of Ossian: Cath-Loda, 

Duan III 275 

James Boswell 

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 

Chap. XIII 277 

Junius [? Sir Philip Francis] 

Fetters XI 1 and XV, to the Duke of 

i '■ rafton, 292 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, I 

William Wordsworth 

Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads" 29S 

Sir Wal rER Scott 

Wandering Willie's Talc (from Redgaunt- 

let).. 308 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

Biographia Literaria, Chap. XIV 317 

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey 

The White 1 toe of Rylstone 320 

Robert Sou rani 

The Life of Nelson, Chap. Y (extract), 

the Battle of the Nile 321 

J VNE Austen 

Pride and Prejudice, Chaps. I-VI 328 

Charles Lamb 

The Two Races of Men 337 

Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist 340 

\ Chapter on Ears 343 



CONTENTS 



IX 



Walter Savage Landor 

Imaginary Conversations: ^Esop and 

Rhodope 345 

William Hazlitt 

Mr. Coleridge 349 

Leigh Hunt 

The Daughter of Hippocrates 354 

Thomas De Quincey 

The Confessions of an English Opium- 
Eater (extract) 357 

Thomas Carlyle 

Sartor Resartus, Chaps. VI-IX 366 

Thomas Bahington Macaulay, Baron Ma- 
caulay 
The History of England, Vol. I, Chap. 

Ill (extract) 382 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, II 

John Henry Newman, Cardinal 

The Idea of a University, Discourse VI 

(extract) 4°9 

George Borrow 

Lavengro, Chaps. LXX, LXXI 417 

William Makepeace Thackeray 

The English Humourists: Sterne 425 

Vanity Fair, Chaps. XII, XIII 43° 

Charles Dickens 

A Child's Dream of a Star 440 



Charles Dickens {Continued) 

Our Mutual Friend : Chap. V, Boffin's 

Bower 44 1 

James Anthony Froude 

Caesar, Chap. XIII 45° 

"George Eliot," Mary Ann Evans (Cross) 
The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VII, Chap. V, 

The Last Conflict 45< s 

John Ruskin 

The Stones of Venice, Vol. II, Chaps. I, 

IV, V (extracts) 4»3 

The Crown of Wild Olive, Preface 473 

Matthew Arnold 

Culture and Anarchy: Sweetness and 

Light 47 8 

Sir Leslie Stephen 

Newman's Theory of Belief (extract). . . . 489 
Walter Pater 

Style 492 

The Child in the House 502 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

Francois Villon, Student, Poet, and 

Housebreaker 509 

APPENDIX 

The Mabinogion: Percdur the Son of Ev- 
rawc (translated by Lady Charlotte 
Guest) 5 21 



INTRODUCTION 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (p. i) belongs for the most part, of course, to the 
history of English literature before the Norman Conquest; but the later records, especially 
those of the Peterborough version, from which our selection is taken, are of great im- 
portance for the study of modern English prose. The Chronicle seems to have been 
begun in the reign of Alfred the Great, perhaps in consequence of his efforts for the edu- 
cation of his people. It exists in six versions, differing more or less from one another both 
as to the events recorded and the period of time covered, but together forming, in a man- 
ner, a single work. The early entries, beginning with 60 B.C., were compiled from various 
sources and are, for the most part, very meager and uninteresting. Here are the complete 
records for two years: "An. DCCLXXII. Here (that is, in this year) Bishop Milred 
died;" "An. DCCLXXIII. Here a red cross appeared in the sky after sunset; and in 
this year the Mercians and the men of Kent fought at Otford; and wondrous serpents 
were seen in the land of the South-Saxons." For long, weary stretches of years, there are, 
with the notable exception of the vivid account of the death of Cynewulf, few more excit- 
ing entries than these. Even when great events are recorded, no effort is made to tell 
how or why they occurred, no attempt to produce an interesting narrative. In the time 
of King Alfred, however, a change appears, and, though the records still have the character 
of annals rather than of history, the narrative is often very detailed and interesting, espe- 
cially in regard to the long and fierce contest with the Danes. After the Norman Con- 
quest, one version of the Chronicle, that kept by the monks of Peterborough, contains 
entries of the greatest importance both for the history of the times and for the state of the 
English language then. The latest of these entries is for the year 11 54, when the turbu- 
lent reign of the weak Stephen was followed by the strong and peaceful administration of 
Henry II. The selection we have chosen is from the entry for 1137, and gives a startling 
picture of the terrors of the time. It is almost astounding to recall that it was just at this 
time that Geoffrey of Monmouth started the story of King Arthur on its long and brilliant 
career in literature. The most notable things about the passage, considered as English 
prose, are its simplicity and straightforwardness and its strong resemblance to modern 
English in sentence structure and word order. These features are probably to be ac- 
counted for by the fact that, though the writer doubtless understood Latin, he did not feel 
that he was producing literature, but only making a plain record of facts, and conse- 
quently did not attempt the clumsy artificialities so often produced by those who tried to 
imitate Latin prose in English. 

The Old English Homily (p. 1) may serve to illustrate the kind of sermons preached 
in the twelfth century. The homilies that have come down to us show scarcely any 
originality of conception or expression. All are reproductions of older English homilies 
or are based upon similar compositions in Latin by such writers as St. Anselm of Canter- 
bury, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugo of St. Victor, and Radulphus Ardens. In both 
matter and manner they follow closely their chosen models. The short extract here given 
has been selected principally because of the curious and amusing anecdote of the young 
crab and the old, which is its sole touch of freshness or originality. Very noticeable in 
all of these homilies is the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, which was in vogue for 
so many centuries; and, in some of them, the mysticism which was rapidly developing 



rii INTRODUCTION 

under the influence of the ideals and sentiments of chivalry. The style is determined 
largely by the fact that they were intended to be read aloud to a congregation. The 
symbol U here and in other early texts is to be pronounced like French u, German ii, or, 
less accurately, like Latin i. 

The Ancren Riwle (p. 2), as its name indicates, is a treatise for the guidance and 
instruction of some nuns. We learn from the book itself that it was written, at their 
special request, for three young ladies of gentle birth, — "daughters of one father and one 
mother," who had forsaken the world for the life of religious contemplation and medi- 
tation. There has been some discussion as to the author, but he is generally believed 
to have been Richard Poore, or Le Poor, bishop successively of Chichester, Salisbury, and 
Durham, who was born at Tarrent, where these nuns probably had their retreat, and 
whose heart was buried there after his death in 1237. At any rate, the author was evi- 
dently a man in whom learning and no little knowledge of the world were combined with 
a singularly sweet simplicity, which has often been taken for naivete. His learning 
appears abundantly from his familiarity with the writings of the great Church Fathers 
and the classical Latin authors who were known in his day; his knowledge of the world 
appears partly in his sagacious counsels as to the more serious temptations of a nun's 
life, and partly in his adaptation of courtly romantic motives to spiritual themes; while 
the sweet simplicity of his character is constantly and lovably revealed in the tone of all 
that he says — even in its sly and charming humor — and in his solicitude about infinite 
petty details, which are individually insignificant, to be sure, but mean much for the 
delicacy and peace of life. Of the eight parts or books into which the work is divided 
only two are devoted to external, material matters, the other six to the inner life; and this 
proportion is a true indication of the comparative values which the good counselor sets 
upon these things. The style, for all the learning displayed, is simple and direct, with 
few traces of Latin sentence structure or word order — a fact due perhaps to the nature 
and destination of the book no less than to the character of the author. 

The English Proclamation of Henry III (p. 4) has, of course, no place in the 
history of literature, though it has in the history of prose style. As the first royal procla- 
mation in the English language after the Conquest its importance is great, but may be 
easily misunderstood or exaggerated. It does not mark the real beginning of the use of 
the English language for such purposes; that did not come until many years later. It 
was issued in English as a political measure, to secure for the king support against his 
enemies from the large portion of the commonwealth who understood no Latin or French, 
and as such it is an important evidence of the power of the English-speaking people and 
the value of their support. In view of its peculiar nature its spelling has been retained 
without modification. The only features worthy of special notice are the sign )>, which 
means ///, the sign 3, which represents a spirant g that has become in modern English 
either g, gh, y, or w, and the use of v for // and 11 for v. 

Richard Rolle (p. 5), the greatest of the English mystics, was both a poet and a 
writer of Latin and English prose. His favorite theme of meditation was the love of 
Christ, a subject which so exalted him that he heard in his meditations music of unearthly 
sweetness and felt that he had tasted food of heavenly savor. It is in the descriptions 
of these mystical experiences that he is most interesting and most poetical, but unfortu- 
nately for us they are written in Latin. His English prose is, however, more remarkable 
than his verse. The note of mysticism is unmistakable in the extract here given from 
one of his epistles. His importance in the history of English religious thought is very 
great, especially in emphasizing the significance of the inner life in contrast to the mere 
externals of religious observance — a tendency which we have already noted in English 
literature in connection with The Ancren Riwle. 

The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, Kt. (p. 6), is one of the 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

greatest and most successful literary impostures ever perpetrated. It seems first to have 
been issued about 137 1 in French, from which it was very soon translated into Latin, 
English, and many other languages. Its popularity was enormous, as is attested by the 
immense number of Mss. which have come down to us, and by the frequency with which 
it has been reprinted ever since 1475, the date of the first printed edition. Incredible as 
are many of the stories it contains, the apparent simplicity and candor of the author, his 
careful distinction between what he himself had seen and what he reported only on hear- 
say, his effort to avoid all exaggeration even in his most absurd statements, gained ready 
belief for his preposterous fabrications, and this was confirmed by the fact that some of 
the statements which at first seemed most incredible — such as the roundness of the 
earth — were actually true and were proved to be so by the discoveries of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries. The book was really compiled from many sources, principally 
the travels of William of Boldensele, a German traveler of the previous century, and 
Friar Odoric of Pordenone, an Italian who visited Asia in 1316-1320, the Speculum 
Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, a great mediaeval compilation of history and legend, 
and Pliny's Natural History, that great storehouse of the marvelous. As to the identity 
of the author, he is now believed to have been one Jean de Bourgogne, an Englishman 
who fled from England after the execution of his lord, John baron de Mowbray, in 1322, 
but it is not certainly known whether Mandeville or Bourgogne was his real name. Two 
witnesses of the sixteenth century record having seen at Liege a tomb to the memory of 
Dominus Johannes de Mandeville, on which was an epitaph giving the date of his death 
as Nov. 17, 137 1, and some verses declaring him to have been the English Ulysses. In 
any event, the book is one of the most fascinating books of marvels ever written, and the 
English version, although a translation, is of the highest importance for the history of 
English prose. 

Of John Wiclif (p. 9) no account is necessary here. Whatever may have been his 
own part in the translations of the Bible which go under his name, these translations are 
of great importance for the history of English prose style. The same selection (the fifth 
chapter of St. Matthew) has therefore been given from both the earlier and the later ver- 
sion. The differences between. them are very striking and instructive. In order to afford 
opportunity for further study of the gradual development of the matchless style of the 
Authorized Version of the English Bible, the same chapter is given from Tyndale's ver- 
sion (p. 34, below). Both the Authorized and the Revised versions are so easily accessible 
that it seems unnecessary to print the same chapter from them, but they should not be 
neglected in the comparison. 

John de Trevisa (p. 11) translated into English in 1387 the Polychronicon of Ranulph 
Higden, a sort of universal history and geography written about half a century earlier. 
Higden's work is largely a compilation from other authors, whose names he often gives, — 
sometimes wrongly, to be sure, — but he added a good deal from his own personal knowl- 
edge. Trevisa, in his turn, made some additions in his translation. The chapter here 
given is interesting as a specimen of fourteenth-century English prose, but still more so 
for the glimpses it affords as to the state of the language in the time of Higden and the 
changes that took place between then and the time when Trevisa wrote. 

Geoffrey Chaucer (p. 12) is also too well known to require an additional note. It 
may, however, be remarked that the simplicity of the Prologue to the Astrolabe and the skill 
shown in the translation of Bocthius indicate that, had prose been regarded as a proper 
medium for literary art in his day, Chaucer could have told his tales in a prose as simple, 
as musical, and as flexible as his verse, for he obviously could have wrought out such a 
prose had there been the incentive to do so. 

The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy (p. 16) is the most im- 
portant monument of English prose in the first two thirds of the fifteenth century. It is 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

clear and vigorous in style, and well organized and arranged as a discussion. It was 
intended as a defense of the practices of the Church of England against the criticisms of 
the Lollards, and is distinguished by great ingenuity and subtlety. Its author, Reginald 
Pecock, bishop successively of St. Asaph and Chichester, was very proud of his skill as 
a logician and delighted to undertake a difficult discussion. In this book he alienated 
some of the officials of the Church by the arguments used to defend it, and completed this 
alienation by the publication of heretical doctrines, such as his denial of the authenticity 
of the Apostles' Creed. He was seized and compelled to recant his opinions and to see 
his books burnt as heretical. He died a disappointed and broken man. 

The Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory (p. 18) has long been famous, not only 
as the source of most of the modern poems about King Arthur and his Knights, but also 
as one of the most interesting books in any language. It has recently been shown by 
Professor Kittredge that Sir Thomas was not, as some have supposed, a priest, but, as the 
colophon of his book tells us, a soldier, with just such a career as one would wish for the 
compiler of such a volume. He was attached to the train of the famous Richard Beau- 
champ, Earl of Warwick, and perhaps was brought up in his service. As Professor Kit- 
tredge says, " No better school for the future author of the Morte Darthur can be imagined 
than a personal acquaintance with that Englishman whom all Europe recognized as em- 
bodying the knightly ideal of the age." The Emperor Sigismund, we are informed on 
excellent authority, said to Henry V, "that no prince Cristen for wisdom, norture, and 
manhode, hadde such another knyght as he had of therle Warrewyk; addyng therto that 
if al curtesye were lost, yet myght hit be founde ageyn in hym; and so ever after by the 
emperours auctorite he was called the 'Fadre of Curteisy.' " Sir Thomas derived his 
materials from old romances, principally in French, which he attempted to condense and 
reduce to order. His style, though it may have been affected to some extent by his originals, 
is essentially his own. Its most striking excellence is its diction, which is invariably 
picturesque and fresh, and this undoubtedly must be ascribed to him. The syntax, 
though sometimes faulty, has almost always a certain naive charm. On the whole, re- 
garding both matter and manner, one can hardly refuse assent to Caxton when he says, 
"But thystorye (i.e. the history) of the sayd Arthur is so gloryous and shynyng, that he is 
stalled in the fyrst place of the moost noble, beste, and worthyest of the Cristen men." 

William Caxton (p. 21) of course rendered his greatest services to English literature 
as a printer and publisher, but the charming garrulity of his prefaces, as well as their 
intrinsic interest, richly entitles him to be represented here. The passage chosen is, in 
its way, a classic in the history of the English language. I have tried to make it easier 
to read by breaking up into shorter lengths his rambling statements, — they can hardly 
be called sentences, — but I somewhat fear that, in so doing, a part, at least, of their 
quaint charm may have been sacrificed. 

The Cronycle of Syr John Froissart (p. 22), written in French in the fourteenth 
century, is as charming in manner and almost as romantic in material as Le Morte Darthur 
itself. Sir John was intimately acquainted with men who were actors or eyewitnesses of 
nearly all the chivalric deeds performed in his day in England and France, and indeed in 
the whole of western Europe, and his chronicle has all the interest of a personal narrative 
combined with the charm of his shrewd simplicity and his fine enthusiasm for noble deeds. 
The age in which he lived was one of the most picturesque in history. Chivalry had 
reached the height of its splendid development, and, though doomed by the new forces 
that had come into the world, — gunpowder, cannon, and the growing importance of 
commerce, — its ideals were cherished with perhaps a greater intensity of devotion than 
ever before. It was the age of Chaucer and the author of Gawain and the Green Knight 
in literature, and of Edward III and the Black Prince with their brilliant train of follow- 
ers in tourney and battle. Froissart wrote professedly "to the intent that the honourable 



INTRODUCTION xv 

and noble adventures of feats of arms, done and achieved by the wars of France and 
England, should notably be enregistered and put in perpetual memory, whereby the 
prewe (noble) and hardy may have ensample to encourage them in their well-doing." 
His accounts of events are sometimes colored by this pious intention, as well as by the 
prejudices of his informants; and that is the case with the selection here given. It appears 
from other sources that the young king did not act as nobly and bravely at Mile-end Green 
as Froissart represents him, but no doubt his friends persuaded themselves and Froissart 
that he did, and it seemed a fine example to record for the encouragement of high-spirited 
young men. The interest and importance of the passage may excuse its length; it has 
been quoted or paraphrased by every historian who has written about the famous Revolt 
of 138 1. The style of the translator, Lord Berners, is admirable in its simple dignity and 
its wonderful freshness and vividness of diction. 

Sir Thomas More (p. 29) is one of the most striking and charming figures in the 
brilliant court of Henry VIII, and is known to all students of literature as the author of 
Utopia. Unfortunately for our purposes that interesting book was written in Latin and, 
though soon translated into English, cannot represent to us the author's English style. 
I have chosen a selection from his Dialogues rather than from the History of Richard III, 
partly because the style seems to me more touched with the author's emotion, and partly 
because the passage presents the attitude of the writer on a question which may interest 
many modern readers. It is characteristic in its mixture of dignity, good sense, prejudice, 
enlightenment, spiritual earnestness, and playfulness of temper. 

The Sermon by Hugh Latimer, an extract from which is here given (p. 36), represents 
English pulpit oratory of the middle of the sixteenth century at its very best. Latimer 
was famous for his sound learning, his sturdy common sense, his pithy colloquial style, 
and his intellectual and spiritual fearlessness. A very fair conception of the man may be 
obtained from this sermon and Foxe's account of his death (p. 41, below). 

Roger Ascham, tutor to Queen Elizabeth and one of the most learned men of his 
time, declared that he could more easily have written his Scholemaster (p. 38) in Latin 
than in English, and no doubt he could; but, fortunately, other considerations than ease 
induced him to write in English. The book is intensely interesting, because of the thor- 
oughly wholesome attitude towards learning, not as of value for its own sake, but as a 
means for the cultivation of mind and spirit and an aid toward the development of the 
perfect man, perfect in body, in mind, and in soul, in agility and strength, in intellectual 
power and knowledge, in courtesy and honor and religion, which was the finest ideal of 
the leaders of that great intellectual and spiritual awakeningwhichwecall the Renaissance. 
The same attitude is displayed in his other interesting book, the Toxophilus, which is also 
well worth reading, especially by all who care both for learning and for outdoor sports. 
The methods of training children and of teaching Latin outlined in the Scholemaster are 
so humane and sane and effective, that it is hard to believe that, having once been practiced 
or even suggested, they could have been forgotten and neglected, and needed to be redis- 
covered within our own time, — indeed have not yet been discovered in their entirety by 
all teachers. In spite of Ascham's facility in Latin, his English is simple, clear, and idio- 
matic, and is permeated by the attractiveness of his nature. 

Foxe's Acts and Monuments of these latter and perillous Dayes (p. 41), better known 
as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, was for many years one of the most popular books in the Eng- 
lish language and was reprinted many times. It is, of course, in many respects a barba- 
rous book, the product of an age when scarcely any one, Catholic or Protestant, doubted 
that cruel torture was a proper means of inculcating the true faith, and death a proper 
penalty for refusing to accept it. The book long kept alive the bitter and distorted memo- 
ries of that time. The style is usually plain and a trifle stiff, but occasionally rises to 
eloquence. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

Sir Philip Sidney's famous book, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (p. 45), is too 
leisurely in movement and too complicated in structure to be well illustrated by a con- 
tinuous selection, except as to its style, but the passage here presented seems better suited 
than any other of similar length to convey an idea of the nature of the story and the 
sources of its charm for Sidney's contemporaries. 

The selection from John Lyly's Euphues and his England (p. 57) may seem to some 
teachers shorter than is warranted by Lyly's reputation and his indubitable services to 
English prose. But the characteristics of his style are such as can be exhibited in com- 
paratively small compass; and its excessive ornamentation soon becomes monotonous 
and unendurable. Moreover, it is not by its ornamental but by its structural features 
that it rendered its services to English prose, and the most significant of these, as Pro- 
fessor Morsbach has recently shown, is exact balance of accents in correlative phrases 
and clauses. This very important feature can easily and quickly be worked out by teacher 
or pupils; and the process, if applied to several authors, cannot fail to be profitable. 

Robert Greene (p. 64) is fully discussed in all histories of English Literature. I wish 
here only to explain that I have given three selections from works attributed to him, not 
because I regard him as more important for the history of English prose than some others 
less generously represented, but for other reasons. In the first place, if all three are really 
by Greene, they deserve attention as presenting three different styles and kinds of writing; 
in the second place, at least two of them are of special interest to historians of literature 
and are often quoted for the illustration of Elizabethan life. I confess that, in my opinion, 
the most famous of the three, the Groat's Worth of Wit, is, as some of Greene's friends 
declared when it was published (after his death), not the product of Greene's pen, but 
the work of Henry Chettle. Professor Vetter's arguments against Greene's authorship ! 
seem to me conclusive, and it would not be difficult to add to them. 

The length of the extract from Dekker's GulVs Hornbook (p. 89) will no doubt be 
excused, even by the student, for the sake of its vivid picture of the way in which the 
" young bloods " of Shakspere's day and those who wished to be thought such conducted 
themselves. The advice is of course ironical throughout, but, like many another humor- 
ist who has poked fun at men with a grave face, Dekker has been supposed by some 
readers to have written a serious guide for frivolous men. 

Robert Burton (p. 97) will doubtless be little to the taste of the ordinary modern 
reader, not only because of his love for Latin phrases and quotations with uncouth refer- 
ences, but also because of the quaint style and fantastic humor which have endeared him 
to so many of the greatest lovers of literature. His book is, as might be expected, the 
product of an uneventful life of studious leisure, passed in the quiet shades of the Uni- 
versity of Oxford. The best way to learn to love it is to read it in the same circum- 
stances in which it was produced; the leisure of a long and lazy summer day or a quiet 
winter night is almost indispensable for a full appreciation of its shrewd sense and whimsical 
humor. The passage here given contains not only the brief anecdote from which Keats 
developed his beautiful poem Lamia, but also, if not the sources, at least analogues, of 
Balzac's remarkable story, A Passion in the Desert, and F. Anstey's A Tinted Venus. 
The notes not in brackets are those of the author himself. They have been retained in 
their original form because, not only in their range, but even in their occasional vagueness, 
they are characteristic of the author. 

Leviathan (p. 102) is the strange title given by Thomas Hobbes to his book on govern- 
ment, or, as he calls it, "the matter, form, and power of a commonwealth." The most 
distinguishing features of Hobbes are his entire freedom from mysticism, his conviction 
that all error and all ignorance are the results of a failure to reason clearly and sensibly, 

1 Abhandl. d. 44ten Sammlung d. deut. Schulmanner (Teubner, 1897). 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

and his thoroughgoing application of his principle that "there is no conception in a man's 
mind which hath not, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense." His 
own thought is always clear and simple ; all that he could see in the world he could under- 
stand, and all that he could understand he could express in its entirety. He conceived of 
all men (and of God) as made in his own image, differing from himself only in that some are 
very foolish and none so clear and consistent in reasoning as he. His style is very charac- 
teristic, clear, vigorous, rapid, and full of phrases that stick in the memory. 

Thomas Fuller (p. 117) is famous as antiquary, biographer, historian, pulpit orator, 
and wit. His wit — the quality which has most effectively kept his work alive for modern 
lovers of literature — is displayed at its best, not in the limning of a picture or the develop- 
ment of a theme, but by flashes, in quaint and impressive phrases or in glances at unnoted 
aspects of a subject. It therefore does not appear so strikingly in a continuous extract as 
in such a collection of brief paragraphs as Charles Lamb made for the delectation of him- 
self and spirits akin to his. The short biographical sketch of Sir Francis Drake here 
given does not, indeed, illustrate the versatility of his genius, but it presents a good speci- 
men of his sustained power as a writer of English prose. 

Jeremy Taylor (p. 136) was a master of elaborate and involved prose rhythms and 
as such will always retain his place in the history of English literature. Whether his 
fondness for themes of decay and death was due to a morbid liking for the subjects them- 
selves, or to the value which religious teachers in general at that time attached to the 
contemplation of physical corruption, or whether such themes offered a specially favor- 
able opportunity for lyrical movements in prose ending in minor cadences, may admit of 
discussion. Certainly one hears even in the most soaring strains of his eloquence the 
ground tone of the futility and vanity of life. 

Sir William Temple (p. 143) was not a great writer, but his prose is so good in technique 
that it may serve to call attention to the fact that the secrets of prose style had been mastered 
and a flexible and effective instrument of expression had been created by the long line of 
writers who had wrought at the problem. Henceforth, while great writing was, as always, 
possible only to that special temperamental organization which we call genius, clear and 
graceful prose was within the scope of any intelligent man of good taste and good train- 
ing, as is distinctly shown by the high level maintained in the eighteenth century even by 
writers of mediocre ability. 

The Diary of Samuel Pepys (p. 168) is probably the most honest and unsophisticated 
self-revelation ever given to the world. This is due partly to the fact that Pepys did not 
suppose that it would ever be read by any one but himself, and partly to an intellectual 
clearness and candor which enabled him to describe his actions and feelings without self- 
deception. Other autobiographies — even the most famous — have, without exception, 
been written with half an eye on the public; either the author has, consciously or half- 
consciously, posed to excite admiration for his cleverness or to shock by his unconven- 
tionalities, or he has become secretive at the very moment when he was beginning to be 
most interesting. But the reader would judge unjustly who estimated Pepys's character 
solely on the basis of the diary. He was in his own day regarded as a model of propriety 
and respectability and a man of unusual business capacity. He may be said, indeed, with 
little exaggeration, to have created the English navy; when he became Secretary to the 
Generals of the Fleet, the Admiralty Office was practically without organization, before 
the close of his career he had organized it and, as a recent Lord of the Admiralty says, 
provided it with "the principal rules and establishments in present use." That he was 
not altogether averse to what we now call "graft," is true; but in an age of universal 
bribery he was a notably honest and honorable official, and he never allowed his private 
interests to cause injury or loss to the service. No document of any sort gives us so full 
and varied and vivid an account of the social life and pursuits of the Restoration period; 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

Pepys is often ungrammatical, but he is never dull in manner or unprovided with interest- 
ing material. The carelessness of his style is due in no small measure to the nature of 
his book. He wrote for his own eye alone, using a system of shorthand which was not 
deciphered until 1825. That he was a man of cultivation is proved by the society in which 
he moved, by his interest in music and the drama, by the valuable library of books and 
prints which he accumulated and bequeathed to Magdalene College, Cambridge, by his 
interest in the Royal Society, and by the academic honors conferred upon him by the 
universities. 

Shaftesbury's Characteristics (p. 197) is another notable example of the high develop- 
ment which English prose style had obtained at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 
His philosophy, like most of the philosophy of the time, seems to us of the present day to 
be singularly lacking in breadth, depth, and solidity of content, but there can be no question 
of the clearness and grace of his presentation of it. Occasionally, to be sure, Shaftesbury's 
style becomes florid and acquires a movement inappropriate to prose, but such occasions 
are rare and in the main his prose will bear comparison with the best of its time. 

In such a volume as this it is, of course, impossible to illustrate the work of the novel- 
ists as novelists; and considerations of space have made necessary the omission of all but 
a few of the most notable. In some cases it has been necessary to choose an extract from 
a novel in order to present the writer at his best ; but wherever it is possible a selection 
has been chosen with a view to presenting the writer only as a writer of prose, leaving 
the more important aspect of his work to be presented in some other way. Thus from 
Fielding chapters have been chosen which give his theory of narrative art. 

Whatever may have been the real basis for Macpherson's so-called translation of the 
Poems of Ossian (p. 275), the work exercised a great, and, indeed, almost immeasurable, 
influence upon English and other literatures. Some persons may be disposed to criticise 
the inclusion of an extract from this translation in this volume rather than in the volume 
of poetry, but the translation itself is rhythmical prose, and it would not be difficult to show 
that it has exercised an equal or even greater influence upon prose than upon poetry. 
The question as to Macpherson's responsibility for the poems will probably never be 
entirely resolved. Celtic poems bearing considerable resemblance to his translations 
undoubtedly existed in considerable number, but it seems certain that his work was in no 
case merely that of a translator. 

The long chapter from Boswell's Life of Johnson is full of the prejudice and injus- 
tice of the author toward Oliver Goldsmith, whose ideas were often too advanced for 
such stanch worshipers of the established order as both Bosvvell and his master, John- 
son, were, and whose personal sensitiveness made him, despite his intellectual independ- 
ence, constantly the victim of the great dictator's methods of argument. That this 
chapter has had no little influence in the formation of false opinion about Goldsmith 
and even in promoting misunderstanding of his work, there can be little doubt; but it 
illustrates Boswell's method so well and presents Johnson so interestingly that I have not 
hesitated to print it. 

The Letters of Junius (p. 292) produced in their day a very great sensation, and 
their fame has been heightened by the mystery surrounding their authorship. Many of 
the prominent men of the time were accused of writing them and not a few either shyly 
admitted or boldly claimed the credit and the infamy. The reason why the real author 
did not appear and establish his claims was, as De Quincey long ago pointed out, that he 
could not assert his right to the literary fame without at the same time convicting himself 
of having made improper use of his official position under the government to obtain the 
information which made his attacks so effective. Historians of English literature have 
long accustomed us to believe that these letters depended for their success solely upon their 
literary style, their bitterness of invective, and their sardonic irony; but, although they 



INTRODUCTION xix 

are remarkable as literature, the special feature which aroused the fears of the govern- 
ment was the fact that no state secret seemed safe from the author and that he might at 
any moment reveal matters which it was important to keep unknown. Recent researches 
have made it practically certain that Junius was Sir Philip Francis, who was a clerk in 
the war office during the period of the publication of the letters. 

If Francis Jeffrey (p. 320) was unjust in his reviews of Wordsworth, lovers of Words- 
worth — and who is not ? — have been at least equally unjust in their treatment of Jeffrey. 
Sentences have been quoted, often in garbled form and always without the context, to 
illustrate the unfairness and stupidity and poetic insensibility of Jeffrey. Most sane 
critics of the present day differ from Jeffrey mainly in emphasis, they recognize that Words- 
worth really had the defects which Jeffrey pointed out, and that they are grave. But in 
literature only the successes count, the failures fall away and should be forgotten. The 
selection here printed presents Jeffrey in his most truculent mood; another selection, the 
review of the Excursion, was planned for this volume, but the limitation of our space 
necessitated its omission. 

Leigh Hunt (p. 354) hardly deserves to be retained in a book from which it has 
been necessary, on account of lack of space, to exclude so many of his betters, but the 
interest of comparing his version of the Daughter of Hippocrates with Sir John Mande- 
ville's prose (p. 6) and William Morris's poem (English Poetry, p. 551) was too great for 
my powers of resistance. Mandeville's version is a masterpiece of simple vivid narration, 
Morris's a wonder of visualized color and form and action, while Hunt's is a bit of clever 
but feeble prettiness, the work of a man totally deficient in distinction and power. These 
versions may help the student to understand when borrowing is not plagiarism — a task 
apparently too difficult for many who are sincerely interested in the problem. 

The long selection from Macaulay's famous chapter on the state of England at the 
time of the Revolution of 1688 (p. 382) is of course out of proportion to his importance 
among writers of English prose ; but teachers who are tired of reading over and over again 
his biographical sketches will doubtless welcome it as a change, and both teachers and 
pupils will surely find it valuable for the vivid picture it gives of the physical and social 
background against which so large a part of English literature must be seen if it is to be 
seen truly. Moreover, in style it presents Macaulay at his best. 

The title Mabinogion (p. 521) was given by Lady Charlotte Guest to the Welsh 
tales which she translated from the Red Book of Hergest, a collection of bardic materials. 
The Red Book was apparently written in the fourteenth century, but all of the stories 
probably took their present form earlier, and some of them are, in some form, of great 
antiquity. The term Mabinogion, though it has been generally accepted, does not properly 
include the tale here given. A young man who aspired to become a bard was called a 
Mabinog and was expected to learn from his master certain traditional lore called Mabi- 
nogi. Four of the tales included in the Red Book are called "branches of the Mabinogi." 
Lady Charlotte Guest treated Mabinogi as a singular, meaning a traditional Welsh tale, 
and from it formed the plural Mabinogion, which has since been widely used as she used 
it. Her translation was published in 1838-1849, and has been greatly admired for its 
preservation of the simplicity and charm of the originals. The story here printed is riot 
purely Welsh, but has been affected in greater or less degree by the form and ideas of 
Arthurian romance as developed in France and England under the influence of chivalry. 



ENGLISH PROSE 



EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH 



THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE 

(c. i i 54) 

A MONK OF PETERBOROUGH 
(From the Record for 1137) 

This gaere * for 2 the king Stephne ofer sae 3 
to Normandi, and ther wes 4 underfangen, 5 
forthithat 6 hi 7 uuenden 8 that he sculde 9 
ben 10 alsuic u alse 12 the eom 13 wes, and for 8 
he hadde get his tresor; M ac 15 he to-deld 16 it 
and scatered sotlice. 17 Micel 18 hadde Henri 
king gadered gold and sylver, and na 19 god 20 
ne dide me 21 for his saule 22 tharof. 23 

Tha 24 the king Stephne to Englalande com, 25 
tha 28 macod 27 he his gadering 28 aet Oxeneford; 
and thar he nam 29 the biscop Roger of Sere- 
beri 30 and Alexander biscop of Lincol and te 31 
Canceler Roger his neves, 32 and dide 33 eelle in 
prisun til hi 7 iafen 34 up here 35 castles. Tha 24 
the suikes 36 undergaeton 37 that he milde man 
was and softe and god 20 and na l9 justise 38 ne 
dide, tha 2e diden hi 7 alle wunder. 39 Hi 7 had- 
den him 40 manred 41 maked 27 and athes 42 
suoren, 43 ac 15 hi nan l9 treuthe ne heolden. 44 
Alle he 7 waeron 45 forsworen and here 35 treothes 
forloren ; 46 for aevric 47 rice 48 man his castles 
makede, 49 and agaenes 60 him heolden, 51 and 
fylden 52 the land ful of castles. Hi suencten 53 
suythe 54 the uurecce 55 men of the land mid 66 
castel weorces. 57 Tha 24 the castles uuaren 45 

1 year 2 went 3 sea 4 was 6 received 8 because 
7 they 8 weened, thought 9 should 10 be "just 
such 12 as 13 uncle u treasure 16 but :e dispersed 
17 foolishly 18 much 19 no 2° good 21 anyone 22 soul 
23 on account of it 24 when 26 came 26 then ^ made 
28 assembly 29 seized 30 Salisbury 31 the 32 nephews 
(i.e. the son and nephew of Roger of Salisbury) 
3a p U (. 34 g ave 36 their 3B traitors 37 perceived 
38 justice, punishment 39 strange things, evils 40 to 
him ""homage 42 oaths 43 sworn 44 kept 46 were 
46 entirely abandoned 47 every 48 powerful 49 fortified 
60 against 81 held 62 filled 63 oppressed 64 greatly 
65 wretched 68 with 67 works 



maked, tha ' fylden hi mid deovles and yvele 2 
men. Tha ' namen 3 hi tha 4 men the s hi 
wenden 6 that ani god 7 hefden, 8 bathe 9 be 10 
nihtes and be daeies, carlmen " and wimmen, 
and diden 12 heom 13 in prisun efter 14 gold and 
sylver, and pined 15 heom untellendlice 16 pining, 17 
for ne uuaeren 18 naevre 19 nan martyrs swa 20 pined 
alse 21 hi wasron. Me 22 henged 23 up bi the fet 24 
and smoked heom mid ful 2B smoke. Me 
henged bi the thumbes, other 26 bi the hefed, 27 
and hengen 28 bryniges 29 on her 30 fet. Me 
dide 12 cnotted strenges 31 abuton 32 here 30 
haeved 27 and uurythen 33 to 34 that it gaede 35 
to the haernes. 38 Hi dyden heom in quarterne 37 
thar 38 nadres 39 and snakes and pades 40 waeron 
inne, and drapen 41 heom swa. 20 . . . 

I ne can ne I ne mai 42 tellen alle the wun- 
der 43 ne alle the pines 44 that hi diden wrecce 45 
men on 46 this land ; and that lastede tha .xix. 
wintre 47 wile 48 Stephne was king, and asvre 49 
it was uuerse 50 and uuerse. 

From AN OLD ENGLISH HOMILY 

(before 1200) 

(Unknown Author) 

Missus est Jeremias in puteum et stetit ibi 
usque ad os, etc. 

(See Jeremiah 38 : 6-13) 

Leofemen, 51 we vindeth 52 in Halie Boc 53 thet 
Jeremie the prophete stod in ane 54 piitte 5B and 
thet 56 in the venne 57 up to his muthe; 58 and 

1 then 2 evil 3 seized 4 those 6 who 6 weened, 
thought 7 property 8 had 9 both 10 by " men 12 put 
13 them 14 after (i.e. to obtain) 1S tortured 16 unspeakable 
17 torture 18 were 19 never 20 so 21 as 22 one (i.e., they 
indefinite) 23 hanged 24 feet 25 foul « or 27 head 
28 hung 2B corselets (as weights) 30 their 31 cords 
32 about 33 twisted 34 till 38 went, penetrated 
38 brains 37 prison 38 where 3fl adders 40 toads 
41 killed 42 may 43 evils 44 tortures 45 wretched 
40 in 47 years 48 while 49 ever 50 worse 61 beloved 
62 find 63 holy book = the Bible * 4 a M pit 
68 that (emphatic) bl fen, mire 68 mouth 



RICHARD I'OORK 



tha ' he hefede' ther ane 8 hwile istonde, 8 
tha ■ bicom ' his licome 7 swithe ' feble, and 
me u nom '° rapes " and caste in to him for 
to draghen '■' hine ,:l ul of thissr pUtte. Ah " 
his licome ' wes se ll swithe ' feble thel he ae 
mihte nohl '" itholie " the herdnesse 1S of the 
rapes. Tha ' sende me ' clathes 1U ut of thes ,0 
lunges huse for to bi winden '■'• the rapes, thet 
his licome, 1 the" feble wes, ae sceolde" 
nohl 1 " wursien." Leofemen," theos M ilke" 
weord" the" ic 18 habbe 80 her i-seid" hab- 
beth muchele M bi-tacnunge," and god M 
ha M beoth" to heren and muchele betere u> 
et-halden." . . . 

Bi feremie the prophete we aghen :,s to 
understonden Ulcne 88 mon sttnfulle" thel lith 
in hevie sim no and thurh sothe " scrifl " his 
stlnbendes I:I nttle " slakien." Funiculi amari 
tudines penetencie significant. The rapes the- 3 
weren i east to him l>i tacneth '" the herdnesse 

of SCrifte '•'; for nis ,? nan IS of US so 16 strong 

the 48 hefde idon" thre hefed" sttnnen tlu ; t 
his licome nere M swithe feble er M he hefde 
i-dreghen" thet" scrifl the" t her to bi- 
limpeth." Thas kinges hus bi-tacneth llali 
Chirche. Tha clathes thel weren i sende ul of 

thes kinges huse for to binden the rapes mid" 
bi-tacnet" the halie 88 ureisuns 80 the" me" 
singeth in halie chirche and the halie sacra 
mens the 81 me" aacreth" in" a lesnesse" of 
alia silnfulle. Leofemen, nu ye" habbeth i herd 

of this piitte the bi tacningc the ic habbe embc " ; 
i speken 88 and the bi tacningo of the prophete 
and thel " the rapes bi tacneth. and liw it " 

tha clathes bi-tacneth the 411 the rapes weren 
mide 8 ' bi wunden. t-hereth 70 nuthe" whtilche" 
thinges wunieth ;:I in thisse piitte. Ther 
wunieth fower ; ' ctlnnes ' 8 wUrmes ™ inne," thet 
for-doth" nnthc " al theos midelard." Ther 

1 when '-' h.nl :i a * stood • then n became 7 body 
'very • one, they (indefinite) "took u ropes 'Mi.nv 
1:1 him M lmt l 'so "not "endure "hardness 
"cloths "the (gtn. s.) "wind about "which 
"should "grow worse, suffer a * bclovo^^**these 
"same "words -» 1 30 have ***' srdH. spoken 
"much " meaning, significance "good "they "arj 
37 keep "ought "each "sinful "true "confes- 
sion, penance "sin-bonds "will not "loosen 
"signify "there is not "none '"that "done 
M head; chief "were not, would not become "ere, 
"endured, performed "the "belongs 
"with "signifies "holy " orisons, prayers "that 
"one, they (indefinite) " celebrate(s) "for "re- 
lease "ye "about "spoken "what "hear 
71 now ■•-' what sort of "dwell "four "kinds 
n reptiles 77 in yto bt taken with Ther) "destroy 
"world 



wunieth inne 1 faghe 1 neddren, 8 and beoreth 8 
atter 1 under heore " tunge; blako tadden, 7 
and habbeth atter np(x>n heore lieortc; ycluwe 8 
froggen, and crabben. 
Crabbe is an manere • of hssce l0 in there u 

sea. This fis l0 is of swi'ilc '•' ci'mdc i:i thet ever 
Be w he mare ' 5 strenglheth him to swimminde 
mid 1 " the waterc, se ,7 he mare swimmeth 
abac 18 And the aide crabbe seide to the 
yunge, 18 " Hwi ne Bwimmest thu forthward in 

there" sea alse " other tisses doth?" And 
heo '•'" seide, " Leofe ;i moiler, swim thu foren" 
me and tech me hu " ic seal 2i swimmen forth- 
ward." And heo'-'° bigon to swimmen forth- 
ward mid the streme, and swam hire" ther- 
a yen.'-'" Thas ?; faghe neddre 3 bi-tacneth this 
faghe'- folc* 8 the*'" wuneth in thisse weorlde, 
[etc] 

RICHARD POORE? (i>. 1237) 

From THE ANCREN RIWLE 30 

Speech 

On aire crest,' 11 hwon 32 ye schulen " to ourc " 
parlures" thttrle," iwiteth '' el "ower" meiden* 8 

hwo hit '" beo " thet is icumen, 11 VOr" SWllch " 
hit mci ft beon '" thet ye schulen 47 aschunicn " 
OUj" and hwon ye alios 60 moton 61 VOrth," 
creoiseth" ful yeome" our" muth," earen, 
and eien," and te" breoste ekej .and goth 88 
forth mid Godes drede to preoste. 88 On eifesl 88 
siggeth "' confiteor,** and ther efter benedicite* 
Thet"' he ouh" to siggen," hercneth his 
wordes, and sitteth al stille, thet," 7 hwon" he 
parteth vrom ou, 88 thel he ne cunne" ower 

god 70 ne ower iivel ;i nouthcr; ne he ne cunne 
OU nouthcr ''■ blamcn ne prcisen. Sum 7S is so 

'in (to /'c taken with Ther) 'spotted 'adders 

'bear "poison "their r toads "yellow "kind 
!UCh 13 nature ll as u more 



" fish 



the 



'• with l7 so "aback "young "she "dear 
"before "how "shall "her (reflexive) "against 
it "these "folk "that "The Nuns' Rule 

81 first Of all " when 83 shall [go] " your 
** parlor's "* winilow * 7 know, learn 3S from 

" maid *" it tl is " come * 3 for " such 4J may 
*' be "shall, ought to "shun, avoid "you (re- 
flexive, not to be translated) "by all means or 
necessarily n must [go] M forth, i.e. out of your 

dwelling "cross, i.e. bless with the sign of the cross 
4) zealously "mouth "eyes " the, ».•. your "go 
(Imper.) "the priest "first M say (Imperative, 

as art- some of the other verbs in -ethl " the formula 
of confession "a canticle or hymn: " Bless ye the 
lord:" "what "ought ""say * 7 that, in order 
that "you "''know "good 71 evil n neither 7S one 



THE ANCREN RIWLE 



wcl ilered ' other 2 se 3 wis-iworded, thct heo * 
woldc 5 thet he " wttste 7 hit; 8 the " sit l0 and 
speketh touward him, and yell " him word 
ayein 12 word, and bicumcth meister, 18 Uie 
schulde beon ancre; and leaieth u him thet is 
icumen ' 5 to leren '" hire: 17 woldc" 1 hi hire 
tale sone 1U beon mit ,0 te wise iclid " and 
icnowen. 22 Icnowen heo' 1 is wel, vor 2:| thurh 
thet Like w thet heo 1 weneth 28 to beon 2 " wis 
iholden, 27 he understont 28 thet heo is sot. 20 Vor 
heo hunteth cfter pris, 80 and keccheth lastunge. 8 ^ 
Vor et M tc 33 lastc, hwon M he is iwend * a-wei, 
"Thcos 38 ancre," he wiile 37 siggen, 38 "is of 
muchelc 39 speche." Eve heold ine parai's 40 
longc tale " mid ao tc neddre, 42 and tolde hire 17 
al lliet lescun 43 thet God hire hefde " ilered B 
and Adam of then 88 epple; and so the vcond m 
thurh hire word understod an-on-riht " hire 
\v<K iiesse, 4 " and ivond 19 wei touward hire of 
hire vorlorenesse. 50 Ure 51 Lefdi, 62 Seinte Marie, 
diide 6:t al M an other wise : ne tolde heo then " 
engle 66 none tale, auh 68 askedc him thing 
scheortliche " thet heo ' ne kuthe. 68 Ye, mine 
leove 69 siistren, volcweth "° Ure 61 Lefdi, and 
nout 61 the kakcle ° 2 Eve. Vor-thi M ancre, 
hwat-sc 8I heo beo, 85 alsc ° 6 muchel 39 ase heo 
ever con 07 and mei, holde hire 88 stille : nabbe "° 
heo nout henne 70 kiinde. 71 The hen, hwon heo 
haveth 72 ileid, ne con 87 buten 6G kakekn. 71 
And hwat biyit u heo thcr-of ? Kumeth 76 the 
couc 78 anon-riht 47 and revelh 77 hire hire eiren, 78 
and fret 7 " al thet of hwat s0 heo schulde vorth- 
bringen hire cwike 81 briddes; 82 and riht also 83 
the Itithere 84 coue, deovel, 86 berth 80 a-wei vrom 
the kakelinde 87 ancren and vorswoluweth 88 al 
thet :,:| god 89 thet heo istreoned 90 habbeth, 91 thet 
schulden ase 92 briddes beren 93 ham 94 up tou- 



IVIIWVVI1 nil Vll^ L 1 1 ■ I lf^ LUlllfV.>, VA|«.tl.> UC 

27 held 28 understands * foolish 30 praise 31 blame 
32 at 33 the 34 when 3B turned 30 this 37 will 
88 sa y jg muc h 40 paradise 41 talk 42 adder, ser- 
pent 43 lesson 44 had 48 taught 40 fiend " at 
once 48 weakness 4U found " perdition 8l Our 
"Lady "did "all, entirely "angel "but 87 briefly 
58 knew 8U dear 00 follow 01 not 82 chattering 
n3 therefore M what-so, i.e. whosoever w he, may 
be "° as "can fl8 herself m have not (hortative 
Subj.) 70 hen's 71 nature 72 hath 73 cackle 74 ob- 
tains 78 comcth 7B chough 77 takes from n eggs 
711 ,..,( S no which hi ijy^ Jiving H2 young birds k;i so 
84 wicked 86 the devil 80 bears 87 cackling 8H swal 
lows up 8tl good "produced ul has u2 as "bear 



»' them 



ward heovene, yif hit ncrc ' icakeled. The 
wrecche peoddarc 2 more noise he maketh to 
yeicn 3 his sope 4 then 5 a riche mercer al his 
dcorewurthe ° ware. To summe 7 gostlichc 8 
monne ' thet ye beoth trusti uppen, ase 10 ye 
muwen " beon of Hit, 12 god 13 is thet ye asken 
red 14 and salve, 16 thet he teche ou toyeines 10 
fondunges, 17 and ine schrifte 18 schcaweth 19 
him, yif he wulc ihercn, 20 ower 21 grestc 22 and 
ower lodliikeste 23 siinnen, 24 vor-thi-thet him 
arcowe ou; 26 and thurh the bireounesse 26 crie 
Crist inwardliche 27 merci vor ou, and habbe 2S 
ou ine miinde 29 and in his boncn. 30 Scd mulli 
veniunt ad vos in vcslimenlis ovium; intrin- 
secus autem sunt lupi ra paces. "Auh 31 witeth 32 
ou, and beoth 88 iwarre," M he seith, ure 85 
Loverd, "vor monie M cumcth to ou ischrud 37 
mid lombes lleose, 38 and beoth ™ wode 40 wulvcs." 
Worldlichc men ileveth u liil; 42 rcligiuse yet 
lessc. Ne wilnie 43 ye nout to muchel hore 44 
kuthlcchunge. 45 Eve withute drede spec 40 mit 
tc neddre. Ure 3S Lefdi 47 was ofdred 48 of 
Gabrieles speche. 

■p 1* 1* t* 'K ^r* ^ 

Ure dcorewurthe a Lefdi, Seinte Marie, thet 
ouh 49 to alle wiimmen beon vorbisne, 60 was of 
so liitc 42 speche thet nouhware 61 ine I loli Write 
ne ivinde 62 we thct heo spec 4 "bute vor 53 sithen ;" 
auh 31 for 65 the seldspeche " hire wordes wcrcn 
hevie, 67 and hefden 68 muche mihte. Hire 
vorme S9 wordes thct we redeth of wcrcn tho °° 
heo onswerede then" 1 engle Gabriel, and thco 82 
wcrcn so mihtie thet mid tet " 3 thet ° 4 heo scide, 
Ecce ancilla Domini; fiat mihi secundum ver- 

bum tuum, et tissc ° 5 worde Godes sune 

and soth " God bicom 87 mon ; and the Loverd, 
thet al the world ne muhtc 88 nout bivon, 89 bi- 
tiinde 70 him 71 withinnen the mcidencs 72 worn be 
Marie. Hire othre 73 wordes weren thoa °° heo 
com and grette 74 Elizabeth hire mowe; 75 and 
hwat mihte, wenest-tu, 78 was iciid 77 ine theos 82 

1 were not 2 peddler 3 cry 4 soap 8 than • precious 
7 some 8 sjjiritual "man 1U as "may 12 few 13 good 
14 counsel w remedy ia against 17 tcmptations 18 confes- 
sion 19 show *° hear 21 your 22 greatest 23 most hateful 
24 sins 28 in order that he may pity you (areowe is 
impersonal) ^ pity 27 sincerely 28 have 20 mind, 
memory 30 prayers 3l but 32 guard 33 be 34 cautious 
38 our 3« man y 37 c l thed 38 fleece 3B arc 40 wild 
41 believe (Imperative) 42 little 43 desire 44 their 
48 acquaintance 48 spoke 47 Lady 48 afraid 4B ought 
80 example 81 nowhere 82 find 83 four 84 times 
"because of 80 seldom-speaking 87 weighty 88 had 
"first ""when B1 the 62 these 83 that ° 4 which 
88 at this •" true 87 became ° 8 might ou encompass 
70 enclosed 71 himself 72 maiden's 7a second 7 * greeted 
75 kinswoman 70 thiukest thou 77 manifested 



RICHARD POO RE 



wonlcs? Ilwat,' tint ;i child bigon VOI to 

pleien ' toyeines' ham* thet was Seixi 
[ohan -in his moder wombel The thridde 
time thel heo spec,' thet was e1 te neoces, 9 
and ther, thurh hire bone, 1 was water iwend s 
to wine. The veorthe time was thoa a heo 
hefde 10 imist 11 hire sune, u and eft u nine 14 

ivond. 15 And hu nmehel wnnder vohiwede* 1 " 

theos wordesl Thet God almihti beih " him 1S 
to one IU monne, 90 to one " Bmithe, and to am' '" 
wUmmone," and foluwude '" ham/ ase* 1 bore,* 8 
hw aider so '■'' heo 98 evei wolden. 98 Nimeth" 
nn " her " yeme, 80 and leorneth yeome : " her bi 
lui ■'■' seldcene "speche haveth muche stiencthe. 

Nuns May Riir No Hkast hit a Cat 

ye, mine leove !1 stistren, 88 ne schulen :I " hab- 
ben M no best, 88 bute kat one. 1 ' Ancre 40 thel 
haveth eihte 41 thilncheth d bel ,:I husewif, 44 ase 
Marthe was, then ancre; '" ne none weis 48 ne 
nu-i heo M beon " Marie mid grithfulnesse ,s of 
heorte. Vor theonne '• mol c ' 1 ' heo thenchen 61 
of the kues u foddre, and of heordemonne 88 
buire, 94 oluhnen 88 thene 88 heiward, 81 warien 88 
hwon ; '" me "" ptlnl "' hire, and yelden, 81 thauh,? 8 
the hermes. 94 Wat 88 Crist, this is lodlich 88 
thing hwon 89 me 80 maketh mone*' in tune 98 
of ancre 99 eihte. 41 Thauh, 98 yif" eni mot 90 
nede habben " km, loke n thel heo 49 none 
monne ne eilie, ; - ! ne ne hermie; ; ' ne thel hire 
thouht ne beo "nout ther-on ivestned.™ Ancre 
neouh TT nout to habben" no thing thel drawe t9 
utward hire heorte. None cheffare ; " ne drive 
ye. Ancre thet is cheapild, 80 heo cheapeth M 
hire soule the chepmon ■ of helle. Ne wite s;1 
ye noul in oure M huse " of other monnes 
thinges, ne eihte, 41 ne clothes; ne nout ne 
undervo 88 ye the chirche vestimenz, ne thene 91 

1 behold * play ' against, al the sound of 

* tlu-in "spoke • marriage T prayer, request 'turned 
v ' when '" bad " missed " son '- ; again u bin 1S fomul 
"followed lT bowed, humbled l8 himself ll 'a 
" man M woman "as "theirs "whitherso 
"they -"would " take (Imptratiw) » now "here 
"heed "well "how "rare "dear "sisters 
3,1 >h. ill "have "beast "only "'a mm "property 
"seems "rather "housewife "no-ways "she 
47 be " peacefulness " then " must M think. 
"cow's "herdsmen's "hire "flatter M the 
" heyward, bailiff "curse "when eo onc 
01 impounds " pay " nevertheless <14 damages 
" knows " hateful " complaint tVS town, farm 
"a nun's "if "have "look "disturb 
74 harm 7S be " fastened 77 ought 7S may draw 
"bargain M bargainer M sells "tradesman 

* keep, take e.ue of "your sJ house "receive s7 the 



cali/, 1 bute-yif 1 strencthe 8 hit makie, 4 other 8 
mucnel eie; " vor of swtiche 1 witunge 8 is iku- 

inen" tmiehel iivel '" ot'te sithen." 

ENGLISH PROCLAMATION OF 
HENRY III (1258) 

TIenr', Kirs 12 godes fultume IS king on 14 
Engleneloande, Lhoauerd on Yrloand, Duk 

on Norm', on Aquitain', and eorl on Aniovv, 
Send l5 igretinge '" to alle hise holde," Ilaerde ,s 
and ileawede 10 on lluntendon'schir'. h;t*t " 
witen-' 3e 18 wel alle, bset we willen and vnnen : ' ;l 
bet bet 94 vie" ra-desmen M alle, ober 9 )>e " 

moare ,8 del "" of heom 80 bet beob 3I ichosen 

bUT3 u VS and bUT3 bet 91 loandes M folk on 
vre kuneriche, 88 habbeb M idon M and schullen M 
don s7 in he worbnesse 3S of gode 39 and on vre 
treowbe 40 for he freme 41 of he loande l>ur3 he 
besi^te '-' of han •' to-foreniseide " redesmen," 
beo stedefesl and Qestinde M in alle hinge 
a ,; ' buten "'' Bende. 41 And we hoaten 48 alle vre 
treowe, 49 in l1 be treowbe "' bel heo 60 us 03en, 81 
bet heo stedefestliche healden 91 and sweren 
to healden and to werien " bo M iselnesses " 
hat beon 31 imakede and beon to makien 68 
hurs u ' han 81 to foren iseide ,;i raalesmen ober 9 

burs w moare 88 del ,8 of heom, 30 alswo M 

alse "' hit r " s is biforen iseid. 89 And bel ehc e0 
Obex U1 helpe bel for to done :,; hi han 81 ilehe " 
Obe M a^enes "' alle men Ri3l for, to done 81 

and to foangen. 98 And noan ** ne nime ' 7 of 

loande ne " of e^te " wherhnr^ his beside 4 - 

mu^e " \\\m ilet ;i ober iwersed n on onie 7S 
wise. And 3U u oni ;i obex 6 onie 7 " cumen 
her on^enes, ;7 we willen and hoaten '* hat alle 
vre treowe " heom healden deadliehe ifoan. 78 

And for bet we willen bset his heo stedefsest 
and lestinde," we sended 79 sew 80 |>is writ 



'chalice -unless 'strength, necessity 

4 make, e.uise ■ or " fear 7 such ' guarding 
v come l0 evil " oft-times 12 by '•' aid 14 in 
'• sends lB greeting l7 faithful 1S learned 

"unlearned "that ■ know "ye "grant 
24 what "our "counselors J7 the "greater 
"part "them "are "land's "kingdom "have 

M done 88 shall S7 do 3S honor »» God «° loyalty 
41 benefit 4J provision * 3 aforesaid 44 lasting 45 ever 

"without "end "command "loyal "they "owe 
"hold "defend "laws " to make, to be made 
"iust "as >s it "said "each "the other "same 
"oath "towards "receive M none "take (sul'j.of 
command) 08 nor 6 * property 70 may 7l hindered 
7 - injured "any 74 if 7 * any one 78 any (/>/.") "here 

against, /.<•. against this proclamation 7S toes 7tf send 



EPISTLE III 



5 



open, iseincd ' wi|> vrc seel to halden 2 amanges 
sow ine hord. 8 Witnesse vs-seluen 4 aet 
Lunden' hane 5 E3tctenbe n day on be Monbe 
of Oclobr' In be Two and fowerti3be 7 3eare 
of vre cruningc. 8 



RICHARD ROLLE (i2Qo?-i349) 

From EPISTLE III 

THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE TO GOD 

The lufc of Jhesu Criste es 9 ful dere 10 
tresure, ful delytabyl " joy, and ful sykcr I2 to 
trayst 13 man on. For-thi," he wil not gyf it to 
folys, 15 that k:m noght hald I0 it and kepe il 
tenderly; hot 17 til 18 thaim he gese 10 it the 
whilk 2U nowther 21 for welc ne for wa 22 wil lat 23 
it passe fra tham, hot are 21 thai wil dye or 25 
thai wolde wrath Jhesu Criste. And na 20 wyse 
man dose 27 precyous lycor in a stynkand ves- 
sell, hot in a clene. Als 28 Criste dose 27 noght 
his lufe in a foule hert in syn and bownden in 
vile lust of flesche, bot in a hert that es fayre 
and clene in vertues. Noght-for-thi, 20 a fowle 
vessel may be made sa clene that a ful dere 
thyng savely :)0 may be done 3l tharin. 32 And 
Jhesu Criste ofl-sythes 33 purges many synfull 
mans sawle M and makes it abyl 35 thurgh his 
grace to receyve the delitabel " swetnes of hys 
iuf, and to be his wonnyng-stede 30 in halynes; 37 
and ay 3H the clennar it waxes, the mare- 39 joy 
and solace of heven Criste settes thar-in. For- 
thi, 14 at the fyrst tyme when a man es 9 turned 
to God, he may not felc 10 that swete lycor til 
he have bene wele used in Goddes servys 41 
and his hert be purged thorow l2 prayers and 
penance and gode thoghtes in God. For he 
that es slaw |:1 in Goddes scrvyce may noght be 
byrnand " in lufe, bot-if 45 he do al his myght 
and travell l0 nyght and day to fulfill Goddes 
will. And when that blysscd lufe es in a mans 
hert, it will not suffer hym be ydel, 47 bot ay it 
st i ires hym to do som gode that myght be 
lykand 48 til God, as in praying, or in wirkyng 



'signed 2 hold 'safe-keeping 4 ourselves 8 the 
■eighteenth 'fortieth "crowning 9 is 10 precious 
11 delightful "secure "trust "therefore 18 fools 
'•hold 17 but 18 to "gives 20 which "neither 
22 woe 23 let 2i sooner 28 ere »no v puts 28 so 
20 nevertheless •'"'safely 31 put 32 therein "oft-times 
"soul "able, "dwelling-place "holiness 88 ever 
89 more "feel * l service a through 43 slow 
44 burning *" unless 40 labor 47 idle 48 pleasing 



profitabel thynges, or in spekyng of Cristes 
passyon ; ' and principally in thoght, that the 
mynde 2 of Jhesu Criste passe noght fra his 
thoght. For if thou lufe hym trewly, thou 
wil 3 glad the in hym and noght in other 
thyng; and thou wil thynk on hym, kastand 4 
away al other thoghtes. Bot if thou be 
fals, and take other than hym, and delyte 
the in erthly thyng agaynes his wille, wit B 
thou welc he will forsake the ° as thou 
hase 7 done hyme, and dampne the for thi 
synne. 

Wharfore, that thou may lufe hym trewly, 
understand that his lufe es proved in thre 
thynges; in thynkyng, in spekyng, in wirkyng. 
Chaunge thi thoght fra the worldc, and kast it 
haly 8 on hym, and he sail norysche the. 8 
Chaunge thi mowth fra unnayte 9 and warldes l0 
speche, and speke of hym, and he sail " com- 
forth " the. Chaunge thi hend 13 fra the 
warkes 14 of vanilese, and lyft tham 15 in his 
name, and wyrke anly 10 for hys lufe, and he 
sail" receyve the. Do thus, and than lufes 17 
thou trewly and gase 1S in the way of perfitencs. 
Delyte the sa 10 in hym that thi hert receyve 
nowther 80 worldes joy ne worldes sorow, and 
drcde no anguys 21 ne noy 22 that may befallc 
bodyly on the* or on any of thi frendes; bot 
betake n all in-til Goddes will and thank hym 
ay of all hys sandes, 24 swa 19 that thou may have 
rest and savowre in hys lufe. For if thi hert 
owther 25 be ledde with worldes drede or worldes 
solace, thou ert 20 full fer 2 ' fra the swetnes of 
Cristes lufe. . . . Wasche thi thoght clene 
wyth lufe-teres 28 and brennand 29 yernyng, 30 
that he fynd na 31 thyng fowle in the, for his 
joy es that thou be fayre and lufsom 32 in his 
eghen. 88 Fayrehede 31 of thi sawle, that he 
covaytes, es that thou be chaste and meke, 
mylde and sufferand, never irk 35 to do his 
wille, ay hatand all wykkedncs. In al that 
thou dose, 36 thynk ay to com to the syght of 
his fairehede, 34 and sett al thine entent 37 
thar-in, that thou may com thar-til 38 at thine 
endyng; for that aght 38 to be the ende of al 
oure traveyle, that we evermare, whils we lyve 
here, desyre that syght, in all oure hert, and 

1 passion, suffering 2 memory s wilt 4 casting 
8 know 9 thee 7 hast "wholly 9 vain 10 worjd's, 
worldly "shall "comfort "hands 14 works 18 thcm 
18 only I7 lovest 18 gocst I0 so 20 neither 

81 anguish 22 annoy, injury 23 commit 24 sendings, 
dispensations u either 20 art 27 far ta lave-tears 
29 burning 80 yearning, desire 81 no 32 lovable 
3:1 eyes •* f airness. 30 weary 80 dost 37 intent 



eyes 31 fairness. 
thereto 89 ought 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE 



that we thynk ay lang thar-till. 1 Als sa 2 
festen 3 in thi hert the mynd 4 of his passyon 
and of his woundes: grete delyte and swetnes 
sal thou fele if thou halde thi thoght in mynde 4 
of the pyne 6 that Cryst sufferd for the. . . . 
I wate 6 na thyng that swa 7 inwardly sal take 
thi hert to covayte Goddes lufe and to desyre 
the joy of heven and to despyse the vanitees 
of this worlde, as stedfast thynkyng of the 
myscheves and grevous woundes and of the 
dede 8 of Jhesu Criste. It wil rayse thi 
thoght aboven erthly lykyng, 9 and make 
thi hert brennand 10 in Cristes lufe, and 
purches in thi sawle delitabelte " and savoure 
of heven. 

Bot per-aunter 12 thou will say: "I may 
noght despyse the worlde, I may not fynd it in 
my hert to pyne 5 my body, and me behoves 13 
lufe my fleschly frendes and take ese when it 
comes." If thou be temped 14 with swilk 1S 
thoghtes, I pray the that thou umbethynk ie 
the, 17 fra the begynnyng of this worlde, whare 18 
the worldes lovers er l9 now, and whare the 
lovers er of God. Certes thai war 20 men and 
wymen as we er, and ete and drank and logh; 2l 
and the wreches that lofed 22 this worlde toke 
ese til 23 thair body and lyved as tham lyst, 24 
in likyng of thair wikked will, and led thair 
dayes in lust and delyces; 25 and in a poynt 2a 
thai fel intil hell. Now may thou see that thai 
wer 20 foles and fowle glotons, that in a few 
yeres 27 wasted endles joy that was ordand 28 
for tham if thai walde 29 have done penance for 
thair synnes. Thou sese 30 that al the ryches 
of this world and delytes vanys 31 away and 
commes til noght. Sothely, 32 swa dose 3S al 
the lofers 34 thar-of ; for nathyng may stande 
stabely on a fals gronde. Thair bodys er gyn 35 
til wormes in erth, and thair sawles til the devels 
of hell. Bot all that forsoke the pompe and 
the vanite of this lyfe and stode stalworthly 3e 
agaynes all temptacions and ended in the lufe 
of God, thai ar now in joy and hase 37 the 
erytage 38 of heven, thar to won 39 with-owten 
end, restand 40 in the delyces 41 of Goddes 
syght. . . . 



1 thereto 2 also 8 fasten 4 memory 8 torture 6 know 
7 so 8 death 9 liking, desire 10 burning "delight 
12 peradventure 18 behooves (impersonal) l * tempted 
16 such l6 consider 17 Reflexive, not to be translated. 
18 where 19 are 20 were - 21 laughed 22 loyed 23 to 
24 pleased (impersonal) 28 pleasures * moment 
27 years 28 ordained 29 would 30 seest 31 vanish 
82 truly 83 do 34 lovers 3S given M steadfastly 87 have 
88 heritage 39 dwell 40 resting 41 joys 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE? (d. 137 i) 

THE VOIAGE AND TRAVAILE OF SIR 
JOHN MAUNDEVILE, KT. 

From CHAP. IV 

And from Ephesim Men gon ' throghe many 
lies in the See, unto the Cytee of Paterane, 
where Seynt Nicholas was born, and so to 
Martha, where he was chosen to ben 2 Bis- 
schoppe; and there growethe right gode Wyn 
and strong; and that Men callen Wyn of 
Martha. And from thens 3 gon Men to the 
He of Crete, that the Emperour yaf 4 somtyme 6 
to Janeweys. 8 And thanne passen Men thorghe 
the Isles of Colos and of Lango; of the whiche 
lies Ypocras was Lord offe. And some Men 
seyn, 7 that in the He of Lango is yit 8 the 
Doughtre of Ypocras, in forme and lykeness 
of a gret Dragoun, that is a hundred Fadme 9 
of lengthe, as Men seyn : For I have not seen 
hire. And thei of the Isles callen hire, Lady 
of the Lond. 10 And sche lyethe in an olde 
castelle, in a Cave, and schewethe " twyes or 
thryes in the Yeer. And sche dothe none 
harm to no Man, but-yif 12 Men don hire 
harm. And sche was thus chaunged and trans- 
formed, from a fair Damysele, in -to lyknesse 
of a Dragoun, be 13 a Goddesse, that was 
clept M Deane. 15 And Men seyn, that sche 
schalle so endure in that forme of a Dragoun, 
unto the tyme that a Knyghte come, that is 
so hardy, that dar come to hire and kiss 
hire on the Mouthe: And then schalle sche 
turne ayen 16 to hire owne Kynde, 17 and ben a 
Woman ayen: But aftre that sche schalle not 
liven longe. And it is not long siththen, 18 that 
a Knyghte of the Rodes, that was hardy and 
doughty in Armes, seyde that he wolde kyssen 
hire. And whan he was upon his Coursere, 
and wente to the Castelle, and entred into the 
Cave, the Dragoun lifte up hire Hed ayenst ie 
him. And whan the Knyghte saw hire in that 
Forme so hidous and so horrible, he fleyghe 20 
awey. And the Dragoun bare 21 the Knyghte 
upon a Roche, 22 mawgre his Hede; 23 and from 
that Roche, sche caste him in-to the See: and 
so was lost bothe Hors and Man. And also 
a yonge 24 Man, that wiste 26 not of the Dragoun, 

1 go 2 be 3 thence 4 gave 5 formerly, once upon a 
time 6 the Genoese 7 say 8 yet fl fathom 10 land 
11 appears 12 unless I3 by 14 called 15 Diana 1B again, 
back l7 nature 18 since I9 against 20 fled 2I bore 
22 rock 23 despite his head ( = despite all he could do) 
24 young 2S knew 



THE VOIAGE AND TRAVAILE OF SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILE 



wente out of a Schipp, and wente thorghe the 
He, til that he come to the Castelle, and cam 
in to the Cave; and wente so longe, til that he 
fond a Chambre, and there he saughe ' a 
Damysele, that kembed 2 hire Hede, and 
lokede in a Myrour; and sche hadde meche 3 
Tresoure abouten hire: and he trowed, 4 that 
sche hadde ben a comoun Woman, that dwelled 
there to receyve Men to Folye. And he 
abode, tille the Damysele saughe the Schadewe 
of him in the Myrour. And sche turned hire 
toward him, and asked hym, what he wolde. 
And he seyde, he wolde ben hire Limman 5 
or Paramour. And sche asked him, yif 8 
that he were a Knyghte. And he seyde, nay. 
And than sche seyde, that he myghte not ben 
hire Lemman: 5 But sche bad him gon 
ayen 7 unto his Felowes, and make him 
Knyghte, and come ayen upon the Morwe, and 
sche scholde come out of the Cave before him ; 
and thanne come and kysse hire on the mowthe, 
and have no Drede; "for I schalle do the no 
maner harm, alle be it that thou see me in 
Lyknesse of a Dragoun. For thoughe thou 
see me hidouse and horrible to loken onne, I 
do 8 the to wytene, 9 that it is made be En- 
chauntement. For withouten doute, I am non 
other than thou seest now, a Woman; and 
therfore drede the noughte. And yif thou 
kysse me, thou schalt have alle this Tresoure, 
and be my Lord, and Lord also of alle that 
He." And he departed fro hire and wente to 
his Felowes to Schippe, and leet 10 make him 
Knyghte, and cam ayen upon the Morwe, for 
to kysse this Damysele. And whan he saughe 
hire comen u out of the Cave, in forme of a 
Dragoun, so hidouse and so horrible, he hadde 
so grete drede, that he fleyghe n ayen to the 
Schippe; and sche folewed him. And whan 
sche saughe, that he turned not ayen, sche 
began to crye, as a thing that hadde meche 3 
Sorwe: and thanne sche turned ayen, in-to 
hire Cave; and anon the Knyghte dyede. 
And siththen 13 hidrewards, 14 myghte no 
Knyghte se hire, but that he dyede anon. 
But whan a Knyghte comethe, that is so 
hardy to kisse hire, he schalle not dye; but 
he schalle turne the Damysele in-to hire 
righte Forme and kyndely 15 Schapp, and he 
schal be Lord of alle the Contreyes and 
lies aboveseyd. 



1 saw 



6 lover 

10 let 

16 natural 



2 combed s much * believed, thought 
6 if 7 back 8 cause 8 know 

come 12 fled 18 since u till now 



From CHAP. XVII 

Also yee have herd me seye that Jerusalem 
is in the myddes ' of the World ; and that may 
men preven 2 and schewen there be a Spere 
that is pighte 3 in-to the Erthe, upon the hour of 
mydday, whan it is Equenoxium, that schew- 
ethe no schadwe on no syde. And that it 
scholde ben in the myddes 1 of the World, 
David wytnessethe it in the Psautre, where he 
seythe, Deus operatus est salute[m] in medio 
Terre. 4 Thanne thei that parten 6 , fro the 
parties 6 of the West for to go toward Jeru- 
salem, als many jorneyes 7 as thei gon upward 
for to go thidre, in als many jorneyes may thei 
gon fro Jerusalem, unto other Confynes of 
the Superficialtie of the Erthe beyonde. And 
whan men gon beyonde tho 8 journeyes toward 
Ynde and to the foreyn Yles, alle is envyronynge 
the- roundnesse of, the Erthe and of the See, 
undre oure Contrees on this half. 9 And ther- 
fore hathe it befallen many tymes of o 1 * thing 
that I have herd cownted " whan I was yong: 
how a worthi man departed somtyme from 
oure Contrees for to go serche the World. And 
so he passed Ynde and the Yles beyonde Ynde, 
where ben mo " than 5000 Yles; and so longe 
he wente be I3 See and Lond and so enviround 
the World be many seysons, that he fond an 
Yle where he herde speke his owne Langage, 
callynge on Oxen in the Plowghe, suche Wordes 
as men speken to Bestes in his owne Contree; 
whereof he hadde gret Mervayle, 14 for he knewe 
not how it myghte be. But I seye, that he 
had gon so longe be Londe and be See that he 
had envyround alle ^he Erthe, that he was 
comen ayen l5 envirounynge, that is to seye, 
goynge aboute, unto his owne Marches, 16 yif 
he wolde have passed forthe til he had founden 
his Contree and his owne knouleche. 17 But he 
turned ayen from thens, from whens he was 
come fro; and so he loste moche peynefulle 
labour, as him-self seyde a gret while aftre 
that he was comen hom. For it befelle aftre, 
that he wente in to Norweye; and there Tem- 
pest of the See toke him ; and he arryved in an 
Yle; and whan he was in that Yle, he knew 
wel that it was the Yle where he had herd 
speke his owne Langage before and the callynge 
of the Oxen at the Plowghe; and that was 
possible thinge. But how it semethe to symple 

1 middle 2 prove 3 stuck * God has wrought sal- 
vation in the middle of the earth. 6 depart 6 parts 
7 journeys (i.e. days' travel) 8 those 9 side 10 one 
11 recounted, told 12 more 13 by 14 wonder 18 back 
16 boundaries, borders 17 acquaintances 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE 



men unlerned thai men nc mowc ' not go undre 
the Erthe, and also that men scholde falle 
toward the Hevene from undre I But that 
may not be, upon lesse than wee mowc falle 
toward Hevene fro the Erthe where wee ben. 8 
For fro what partie of the Erthe that men 
duelle, 8 outher 4 aboven or benethen, it semethe 
alweys to hem 6 that duellen that thei gon more 
righte than onv other folk. And righte as it 
semethe to us that thei ben undre us, righte so 
it semethe hem thai wee ben undre hem. For 
vif a- man myghte falle fro the Erthe unto the 
Firmament, be grettere resoun, the Erthe and 
the See, that ben so grete and so hevy, scholde 
fallen to the Firmament: but that may not be; 
and therefore seithe oure Lord God, Non 
Hmeas me, qui suspend* Terra[m] ex nickilof u 

And alio be it that it be possible thing that men 

may so envyronne alle the World, natheles 7 
of a icoo persones on 8 ne myghte not hap- 
pen to returnen in-to his Contree. For 1 the 
gretnesse of the Erthe and of the See, men may 
go be a tooo and a 1000 other weyes, that no 
man eowde reilye l0 him perfitcly toward the 
parties that he earn fro, DUt-yif " it were be 

aventure and happ or be the grace of God. For 

the Erthe is fulle large and fulle gret, and holt 12 
in roundnesse and aboute envyroun, he aboven 
and be benethen, 30435 Myles, aftre the 
opynyoun of the olde wise Astronomeres. And 
here Seyenges 1 repreve i: ' noughte. But aftre 
my lytylle wytt, it semethe me, savynge here 14 
reverence, that it is more. 



From CHAR XXVII 

In the Lond of Prestre John ben many 
dyverse thinges and many precious Stones, so 
grete and so large that men maken of hem & 
vesselle; 18 as Plateres, Dissches, and Cuppes. 
And many other marveyllcs hen there; that 
it were to " combrous and to 10 long to puttcn 
it in scripture 17 of Bokes. 

Hut of the princypalle Vies and of his 
Estate and of his l.awe 1 schalle telle you 

som partye. 18 This Emperour Prestre John is 
Cristene; and a gret partie of his Contree also: 
hut yit thei have not alle the Articles of oure 
Feythe, as wee have. Thei beleven wel in the 

1 may -arc 'dwell, inhabit 'either "them 
8 Dosl thou not fear me who have suspended the earth 
upon nothing? 'nevertheless 'one 'because of 
'"direct u unless " holds, contains "reprove, 
criticise "their "vessels ,9 too 17 writing 
" part 



Fadre, in the Sone, and in the Holy Gost: and 

thei hen fulle devoute ami righte trewe on ' to 
another. And thei sette not be 2 no Barettes, 8 
ne be Cawtelcs, 1 ne of no Disceytes. 5 And he 
hathe undre him 72 Provynces; and in every 
Provynce is a Kyng. Ami thcise Kynges han B 
kynges undre hem; and alle hen tributaries to 
Prestre John. And he hathe in his Lordschipes 
many grete marvcyles. For in his Contree is 
the See that men clepen ' the Gravely" See, 
that is alle Gravelle and Sond* with-outen ony 
drope of Watre; and it ebbethe and flowethe 
in grete Wawes l0 as other Sees don; and it is 
never stille ne in pes n in no maner 12 ccsoun. 13 
And no man may passe that See beNavve" ne 
be no maner of craft : 15 and therfore may no man 
knowe what Lond is beyond that See. And 
alle he it that it have no Watre, yit men 
fynden "' there in and on the Bankes fulle gode 
Fissche of other maner of kynde and sehappe 
thanne men fynden in onv other See; and thei 
ben of right goode tast and delycious tomannes 
mete. 

And a 3 journeys long fro that See, hen grit 
Mountaynes; out of the whiche gothe i; out a 
gret Flood, 18 that comethe out of Paradys;and 
it is fulle of precious Stones, withouten ony 
drope of Water; and it rennethe 10 thorghe the 

Desert, on that ,0 o J syde, so that it makethe 

tin- See gravely; and it hercthe ,; in-to that See, 
and there it endcthe. And that Home IS ren- 
nethe also 3 ilayes in the Woke,-' arid hryngelhe 
with him grete Stones and the Roches "also 
therewith, and that gret plentee. Ami anon 
as thei ben entred in-to the gravely See, thei 
ben seyn 23 no more, but lost for evere more. 
Ami in tho 3 dayes that that Ryvere rennethe 
no man dar-' entren in-to it: but in the other 
dayes men dar entren wel ynow.'-' 5 Also 
beyonde that Flome, 18 more upward to the 
Oesertes, is a gret Plcyn alle gravelly betwene 
the Mountaynes; ami in that Playn every day 
at the Sonne risynge begynnen to growe smale 
Trees; and thei growen til mydd.ay, herynge 
Frute; but no man dar taken of that 
brute, for it is a thing of Fayrye. 2a And 
aftre mydday thei discrecen 27 and entren 
aven - s in-to the Erthe; SO that at the goynge 
doun of the Sonne thei apperen no more; ami so 
thei don every day : and that is a gret marvaylle. 



> . tinu 111 til 10 a j^iti mai * a \ 1 1*. 

by (= do not practice") s fraud: 
•have 'call 'gravelly 'san< 

'"waves "peace "kind of "season "shij 

"device "find "goes, Bows 

»° the M wrik ■ rocks - ,;i soon 

18 magic w decrease ** again 



1 one 8 set not 1 . 
4 tricks 'deceits 'have 'call 
10 waves " peace "kind of "season "ship 
18 find "goes, flows "river "runs 

nough 



18 river 
24 dare ** enc 



JOHN WICLIF 
JOHN WICLIF (d. 1384) THE GOSPEL OF MATHEU 



THE GOSPEL OF MATHEW (first version) 

CHAP. V 

Jhcsus forsothc, 1 seyngc 2 cumpanyes, wente 
up in-to an hill; and when he hadde sete, 8 his 
disciplis camen nighe to hym. And he, 
openynge his mouthe, taughte to hem, sayinge, 
"Blessid be the pore in spirit, for the kingdam 
in hevenes is heren.' 1 Blessid be myldc men, for 
thei shuln 6 welde ° the eerthe. Blessid be thei 
that mournen, for thei shuln 5 be comfortid. 
Blessid be thei that hungren and thristen right- 
wisnessc, 7 for thei shuln ben fulfillid. Blessid 
be mercyful men, for thei shuln gete mercye. 
Blessid be thei that ben 8 of clene herte, for 
thei shuln see God. Blessid be pesible men, 
for thei shuln be clepid 9 the sonys of God. 
Blessid be thei that suffren pcrsecucioun for 
rightwisnesse, 7 for the kyngdam of hevenes is 
hcrun. 4 Yee shulen 5 be blessid, when men 
shulen curse you, and shulen pursue you, and 
shulen say al yvel 10 ayeins u you lcezing, 12 for 
me. Joye 13 yee with-yn-forth, H and glade yee 
with-out-forth, for youre meede 1B is plente- 
vouse 10 in hevenes; forsothe so thei han 17 
pursued and 18 prophetis that wercn before 
you. Yee ben 8 salt of the erthe; that yif " 
the salt shal vanyshc awey, wherynne shal it be 
saltid? To no thing it is worth over, 20 no 21 
bot 22 that it be sent out, and defoulid of men. 
Ye ben 8 light of the world; a citee putt on an 
hill may nat be hid; nether men tendyn 2S a 
lantcrne, and putten it undir a busshel, but on 
a candilstike, that it yeve 24 light to alle that 
ben in the hous. So shyyne 25 youre light 
before men, that thei see youre good werkis, 
and glorifie youre Fadir that is in hevens. 
Nyle 26 ye gesse, or deme, 27 that Y came to 
undo, or distruye, the lawe, or the prophetis; 
I came not to undo the lawe, but to fulfille. 
Forsothe 28 I say to you trewlhe, til hcven and 
erthe passe, oon 2B i, that is leste 30 lettre, or titil, 
shal nat passe fro the lawe, til alle thingis be 
don. Therfore he that undoth, or breketh, 
oon of these leste 30 maundementis, 31 and techith 
thus men, shal be clepid 32 the leste in the 
rewmc 33 of hevenes; forsothe, this 34 that doth, 
and techith, shal be clepid grete in the kyng- 
dame of hevenes. Forsothe Y say to you, 
no-but-yif 35 youre rightwisnesse shal be more 

1 indeed 2 seeing 3 sat 4 theirs 8 shall ° rule 
7 righteousness 8 are "railed 10 evil "against 
12 lying 13 rejoice H with-yn-forth = inwardly 16 rc- 



(SECOND VERSION) 

CAP. V 

And Jhesus, seynge 2 the puple, wente up in- 
to an hil; and whanne he was set, hise disciplis 
camen to hym. And he openyde his mouth, 
and taughte hem, and seide, " Blessed ben pore 
men in spirit, for the kyngdom of hevenes is 
heme.' 1 Blessid ben mylde men, for thei 
schulen 5 welde the erthe. Blessid ben thei 
that mornen, for thei schulen be coumfortid. 
Blessid ben thei that hungren and thristen 
rightwisnesse, for thei schulen be fulfillid. 
Blessid ben merciful men, for thei schulen gete 
merci. Blessid ben thei that ben of clene herte, 
for thei schulen se God. Blessid ben pesible 
men, for thei schulen be clepid 9 Goddis chil- 
dren. Blessid ben thei that suffren pcrsecu- 
sioun for rightfulnesse, for the kingdam of 
hevenes is heme.' 1 Ye schulen be blessid, 
whanne men schulen curse you, and schulen 
pursue you, and shulen seie al yvel 10 ayens " 
you liynge, for me. Joie 13 ye, and be ye glad 
for youre meede I5 is plcntevouse l0 in hevenes; 
for so thei han n pursued also profetis that 
weren bifor you. Ye ben salt of the erthe; 
that if the salt vanysche awey, whereynne schal 
it be saltid? To no thing it is worth overe, 20 
no 2I but 22 that it be cast out, and be defoulid 
of men. Ye ben light of the world; a citee 
set on an hil may not be hid; ne me tcendith 23 
not a lanterne, and puttith it undur a busschel, 
but on a candilstike, that it yyve light to alle 
that ben in the hous. So schyne youre light 
be for men, that thei se youre goode werkis, 
and glorifie youre Fadir that is in hevenes. 
Nil 20 ye deme, 27 that Y cam to undo the lawe, 
or the profetis; Y cam not to undo the lawe, 
but to fulfille. Forsothe Y seie to you, til 
hevene and erthe passe, o 29 lettir or o 29 titel shal 
not passe fro the lawe, til alle thingis be doon. 
Therfor he that brekith oon of these leeste 30 
maundementis, 31 and techith thus men, schal 
be clepid 32 the leste in the rewme 33 of hevenes; 
but he that doith, and techith, schal be clepid 
greet in the kyngdom of hevenes. And Y seie 
to you, that but your rightfulnesse be more 
plcntevouse than of scribis and of Farisees, ye 

ward ie plenteous 17 have I8 also 10 if ^ besides 
21 not 22 but 23 light 24 give 26 Subj. of command. 28 do 
not, literally, wish not (Lat. nolite) w think 2K verily 
29 one 30 least 3I commandments 32 called 33 king- 
dom 34 he 36 unless 



IO 



JOHN WICLIF 



plentevouse than of scribis and Pharisees, yee 
shulen not entre in -to kyngdam of hevenes. 
Yee han l herde that it is said to olde men, 
Thou shal nat slea; forsothe he that sleeth, shal 
be gylty of dome. 2 But I say to you, that 
evereche 3 that is wrothe to his brother, shal 
be gylty of dome; forsothe he that shal say to 
his brother, Racha, that is, a word of scorn, 
shal be gylty of counseile ; 4 sothly he that shal 
say, Fool, that is, a word of dispisynge, shal be 
gylti of the fijr 6 of helle. Therfore yif thou 
offrist tin yift 6 at the auter, 7 and there shalt 
bythenke, 8 that thi brother hath sum-what 
ayeins 9 thee, leeve there thi yift before the 
auter, and go first for to be recounseilid, or 
acordid, to thi brother, and thanne thou cum- 
mynge shalt offre thi yifte. Be thou consent- 
ynge to thin adversarie soon, the whijle thou 
art in the way with hym, lest peraventure thin 
adversarie take thee to the domesman, 10 and 
the domesman take thee to the mynystre, 11 and 
thou be sente in -to prisoun. Trewely I say to 
thee, Thou shalt not go thennes, til thou yelde 12 
the last ferthing. Ye han herd for it was said 
to olde men, Thou shalt nat do lecherye. For- 
sothe Y say to you, for-why 13 every man that 
seeth a womman for to coveite hire, now he 
hath do lecherie by hire in his herte. That 
yif thi right eiye sclaundre M thee, pulle it out, 
and cast it fro thee; for it speedith 15 to thee, 
that oon 16 of thi membris perishe, than al thi 
body go in -to helle. And yif thi right hond 
sclaundre thee, kitt 17 it awey, and cast it fro 
thee; for it spedith to thee, that oon of thi 
membris perishe, than that al thi body go in-to 
helle. Forsothe it is said, Who-evere shal leeve 
his wyf, yeve 18 he to hir a libel, that is, a litil 
boke, of forsakyng. Sothely Y say to you, that 
every man that shal leeve his wyf, outaken I9 
cause of fornicacioun, he makith hire do lecherie 
and he that weddith the forsaken wijf, doth 
avoutrie. 20 Efte-soonys 21 yee han herd, that it 
was said to olde men, Thou shalt not forswere, 
sothely 22 to the Lord thou shalt yeeld 23 thin 
cethis. 24 Forsothe Y say to you, to nat swere 
on al manere; neither by hevene, for it is the 
trone of God; nether by the erthe, for it is the 
stole of his feet; neither by Jerusalem, for it is 
the citee of a greet kyng; neither thou shalt 
swere by thin heved, 26 for thou maist not make 
oon heer whyt or blak; but be youre word yea, 
yea; Nay, nay; forsothe that that is more 



1 have 
council 
8 against 



2 judgment 
5 fire 8 gift 7 £ 
10 judge "officer 



3 every one 4 the 

7 altar 8 remember 

! pay 13 that 



schulen not entre into the kyngdom of hevenes. 
Ye han 1 herd that it was seid to elde men, 
Thou schalt not slee; and he that sleeth, schal 
be gilti to doom. 2 But Y seie to you, that ech 
man that is wrooth to his brothir, schal be 
gilti to doom ; and he that seith to his brother, 
Fy ! schal be gilti to the counseil ; 4 but he 
that seith, Fool, schal be gilti to the fier of helle. 
Therfor if thou offrist thi yifte 6 at the auter, 7 
and ther thou bithenkist, that thi brothir hath 
sum-what ayens 9 thee, leeve there thi yifte 
bifor the auter, and go first to be recounselid 
to thi brothir, and thanne thou schalt come, 
and schalt offre thi yifte. Be thou consentynge 
to thin adversarie soone, while thou art in the 
weie with hym, lest peraventure thin adver- 
sarie take thee to the domesman, 10 and 
the domesman take thee to the mynystre, 11 
and thou be sent in-to prisoun. Treuli Y seie 
to thee, thou shalt not go out fro thennus, til 
thou yelde 12 the last ferthing. Ye han herd 
that it was seid to elde men, Thou schalt do no 
letcherie. But Y seie to you, that every man 
that seeth a womman for to coveite hir, hath 
now do letcherie bi hir in his herte. That if 
thi right iye sclaundre 14 thee, pulle hym out, 
and caste fro thee ; for it spedith 15 to thee, that 
oon 16 of thi membris perische, than that al thi 
bodi go in-to helle. And if thi right hond 
sclaundre thee, kitte 17 hym aweye, and caste 
fro thee ; for it spedith to thee that oon 18 of 
thi membris perische, than that al thi bodi go 
in-to helle. And it hath be seyd, Who-evere 
leeveth his wiif, yyve he to hir a libel of for- 
sakyng. But Y seie to you, that every man 
that leeveth his wiif, outtakun cause of forny- 
cacioun, makith hir to do letcherie, and he that 
weddith the forsakun wiif, doith avowtrye. 
Eftsoone ye han herd, that it was seid to elde 
men, Thou schalt not forswere, but thou schalt 
yelde thin othis to the Lord. But Y seie to 
you, that ye swere not for ony thing; nethir bi 
hevene, for it is the trone of God ; nether bi the 
erthe, for it is the stole of his feet; nether bi 
Jerusalem, for it is the citee of a greet kyng; 
nether thou shalt not swere bi thin heed, for 
thou maist not make oon heere white ne blacke ; 
but be youre word, yhe, yhe; Nay, nay; and 
that that is more than these, is of yvel. Ye 
han herd that it hath be seid, Iye for iye, and 
tothe for tothe. But Y seie to you, that ye 
ayenstonde 26 not an yvel man ; but if ony 

14 slander 15 profiteth 16 one ,7 cut 18 give (subj. of 
"except 20 adultery 21 again 22 truly 
oaths 2S head x resist 



11 slander 10 prot 
command) 10 e.\ 
23 pay 24 oaths 



JOHN DE TREVISA 



ii 



than this, is of yvel. Yee han herde that it is 
said, Eiye ' for eiye, 1 toth for toth. But Y say 
to you, to nat ayein-stonde 2 yvel; but yif any 
shal smyte thee in the right cheeke, yeve to hym 
and 3 the tother; and to hym that wole stryve 
with thee in dome, 4 and take awey thi coote, 
leeve thou to hym and 3 thin over-clothe ; and 
who-evere constrayneth thee a thousand pacis, 
go thou with hym other tweyne. Forsothe 
yif 6 to hym that axith of thee, and turne thou 
nat awey fro hym that wol borwe 8 of thee. 
Yee han herd that it is said, Thou shalt love 
thin neighbore, and hate thin enmy. But Y 
say to you, love yee youre enmyes, do yee wel 
to hem 7 that haten 8 you, and preye yee for 
men pursuynge, and falsly chalengynge 9 you; 
that yee be the sonys of youre Fadir that is in 
hevenes, that makith his sune to springe up 
upon good and yvel men, and rayneth upon 
juste men and unjuste men. For yif ye loven 
hem that loven you, what meed 10 shul n yee 
have ? whether and 3 puplicans don nat this 
thing? And yif yee greten, or saluten, youre 
bretheren oonly, what more over 12 shul yee 
don ? whether and 3 paynymmys 13 don nat 
•this thing? Therfore be yee parfit, 14 as and 3 
youre hevenly Fadir is parfit. Take yee hede, 
lest ye don your rightwisnesse before men, 
that yee be seen of hem, ellis 15 ye shule nat han 
meed at youre Fadir that is in hevenes. Ther- 
fore when thou dost almesse, 16 nyle u thou synge 
byfore thee in a trumpe, as ypocritis don in 
synagogis and streetis, that thei ben maad 
worshipful of men; forsothe Y saye to you, 
thei han resceyved her 18 meede. But thee 
doynge almesse, 18 knowe nat the left hond what 
thi right hond doth, that thi almes be in hidlis, 19 
and thi Fadir that seeth in hidlis, shal yelde 20 to 
thee." 



smyte thee in the right cheke, schewe to him 
also the tothir; and to hym that wole stryve 
with thee in doom, 4 and take awey thi coote, 
leeve thou to him also thi mantil ; and who-ever 
constreyneth thee a thousynde pacis, go thou 
with hym othir tweyne. Yyve 5 thou to hym 
that axith of thee, and turne not awey fro hym 
that wole borewe 6 of thee. Ye han herd that 
it was seid, Thou shalt love thi neighbore, and 
hate thin enemye. But Y seie to you, love ye 
youre enemyes, do ye wel to hem that hatiden 
you, and preye ye for hem 7 that pursuen, and 
sclaundren you; that ye be the sones of your 
Fadir that is in hevenes, that makith his sunne 
to rise upon goode and yvele men, and reyneth 
on just men and unjuste. For if ye loven hem 7 
that loven you, what mede 10 schulen ye han? 
whether pupplicans doon not this? And if ye 
greten youre britheren oonlj, what schulen ye 
do more? ne doon not hethene men this? 
Therfore be ye parfit, as youre hevenli Fadir is 
parfit." 

[77 will be observed that the Second Version agrees 
with the Authorized Version in the division 
into chapters, while the First Version con- 
tains a few verses usually assigned to Chapter 
VL] 



1 eye 2 resist 3 also * a lawsuit " give 
6 borrow 7 them 8 hate 9 accusing 10 reward 
11 shall 12 besides 13 heathen u perfect 18 else 
10 alms 17 do not 18 their 19 secret 20 pay 



JOHN DE TREVISA (1326-1412) 
HIGDEN'S POLYCHRONICON 
BOOK I. CHAPTER LIX 



As it is i-knowe ' how meny manere peple 
beeth 2 in this ilond, 3 there beeth also so many 
dyvers longages 4 and tonges ; notheles 5 
Walsche men and Scottes, that beeth nought 
i-medled ° with other naciouns, holdeth wel 
nyh hir 7 firste longage and speche ; but-yif 8 

1 known 2 are 3 island 4 languages 6 nevertheless 
6 mixed 7 their 8 except 



the Scottes that were somtyme confederat and 
wonede ' with the Pictes drawe 2 somwhat after 
hir speche ; but the Flemmynges that woneth 3 
in the weste side of Wales haveth i-left her 4 
straunge speche and speketh Saxonliche i-now. 6 
Also Englische men, they 6 thei hadde from 
the bygynnynge thre manere speche, northerne, 

1 dwelt 2 incline 8 dwell 4 their * enough a though 



12 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



sowtherne, and middel speche in the myddel of 
the lond, as they come of thre manere peple of 
Germania, notheles ' by comyxtioun and mell- 
ynge 2 firste with Danes and afterward with 
Normans, in meny the contray 3 longage is 
apayred, 4 and som useth straunge wlafferynge, 5 
chiterynge, 6 harrynge, 7 and garrynge 8 gris- 
bayting. 9 This apayrynge of the burthe of 
the tunge is bycause of tweie thinges; oon is 
for children in scole ayenst the usage and man- 
ere of alle othere naciouns beeth compelled for 
to leve 10 hire " owne langage, and for to con- 
strue hir " lessouns and here " thynges in 
Frensche, and so they haveth 12 seth 13 the 
Normans come 14 first in-to Engelond. Also 
gentil-men children beeth i-taught to speke 
Frensche from the tyme that they beeth 
i-rokked in here cradel, and kunneth 15 speke 
and playe with a childes broche ; 16 and uplond- 
isshe 17 men wil likne hym-self to gentil-men, 
and fondeth 18 with greet besynesse for to speke 
Frensce, for to be i-tolde 19 of. Trevisa. 20 
This manere was moche i-used to-for 21 [the] 
Firste Deth 22 and is siththe 13 sumdel 23 
i-chaunged; for John Cornwaile, a maister 
of grammer, chaunged the lore in gramer 
scole and construccioun of 24 Frensche in-to 
Englische; and Richard Pencriche lerned the 
manere 25 techynge of hym and othere men of 
Pencrich; so that now, the yere of oure Lorde 
a thowsand thre hundred and foure score and 
fyve, and of the secounde kyng Richard after 
the conquest nyne, in alle the gramere scoles 
of Engelond, children leveth Frensche and 
construeth and lerneth an 2e Englische, and 
haveth 12 therby avauntage in oon side and dis- 
avauntage in another side ; here " avauntage is, 
that they lerneth her " gramer in lasse 27 tyme 
than children were i-woned 28 to doo; dis- 
avauntage is that now children of gramer scole 
conneth 29 na more Frensche than can 30 hir " 
lift 3l heele, and that is harme for hem 32 and 33 
they schulle passe the see and travaille in 
straunge landes and in many other places. 
Also gentil-men haveth now moche i-left 34 
for to teche here " children Frensche. fy. 3i Hit 
semeth a greet wonder how Englische, that 

1 nevertheless 2 mixing 3 country, native 4 corrupted 
s stammering a chattering 7 snarling 8 howling 9 gnash- 
ing of teeth 10 leave, give up u their 12 have 13 since 
14 came l5 can 18 brooch (ornament in general) 17 coun- 
try 18 attempt 19 accounted 20 What follows, to 1$., is 
Trevisa' s addition. 2I before 22 the First Plague, 
1 348-1 349 23 somewhat 24 from 26 kind of M in 
27 less 28 accustomed 29 know 30 knows 31 left 32 them 33 if 
84 ceased 88 What follows, to Trevisa, is from Higden. 



is the burthe tonge of Englisshe men and her ' 
owne langage and tonge, is so dyverse of sown 2 
in this oon 3 ilond, and the langage of Nor- 
mandie is comlynge 4 of another londe, and 
hath oon 3 manere 5 soun 2 among alle men 
that speketh hit aright in Engelond. Trevisa. 6 
Nevertheles there is as many dyvers manere 7 
Frensche in the reem 8 of Fraunce as is dyvers 
manere Englische in the reem of Engelond. 
tft. a Also of the forsaide Saxon tonge that is 
i-deled 10 athre ll and is abide 12 scarsliche 13 
with fewe uplondisshe 14 men is greet wonder; 
for men of the est with men of the west, as it 
were undir the same partie 15 of hevene, acord- 
eth more in sownynge 16 of speche than men of 
the north with men of the south ; therfore it is 
that Mercii, that beeth men of myddel Engelond, 
as it were parteners of the endes, understond- 
eth bettre the side langages, northerne and 
southerne, than northerne and southerne un- 
derstondeth either other. Willehnus de Pon- 
tificibus, libro tertio} 1 Al the longage 18 of the 
Northhumbres, and specialliche at York, is so 
scharp, slitting, and frotynge 19 and unschape, 
that we southerne men may that longage 
unnethe 20 understonde. I trowe 21 that that is 
bycause that they beeth nyh 22 to straunge men 
and naciouns that speketh strongliche, 23 and 
also bycause that the kynges of Engelond 
woneth 24 alweyfer from that cuntrey; for they 
beeth more i-torned 25 to the south contray, and 
yif they gooth to the north countray they gooth 
with greet help and strengthe. 26 #." The 
cause why they beeth more in the south contrey 
than in the north, is for 28 hit may be better come 
londe, 29 more peple, more noble citees, and more 
profitable havenes. 30 

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (i34o?-i4oo) 

A TREATISE ON THE ASTROLABE 31 

PROLOGUS 

Litell Lowis 32 my sone, I have perceived wel 
by certeyne evidences thyn abilite to lerne 

1 their 2 sound 8 one 4 comer, immigrant 8 kind of 
6 Trevisa adds a very intelligent observation. 7 kinds of 
8 realm 8 What follows is from Higden. 10 divided lI in 
three (dialects) l2 has remained ,3 scarcely 14 country 
,8 part 16 sounding, pronouncing xl The historian, William 
of Malmesbury, is Higden' s authority for what follows 
18 language x9 chafing, harsh 20 scarcely 21 believe 22 nigh 
23 harshly, or (perhaps) strangely 24 live 25 turned x i.e. 
with a large army 27 Higden adds a remark of his own 
to his quotation. 28 because 29 land 30 havens, harbors 31 an 
astronomical instrument ; consult the dictionary 32 Lewis 



TRANSLATION OF BOETHIUS 



J 3 



sciencez touchinge noumbres and proporciouns; 
and as wel considere I thy bisy ' preyere 2 in 
special to lerne the Tretis of the Astrolabie. 
Than, 3 for as mechel 4 as a philosofre seith, 
"he wrappeth him in his frend, that condescend- 
eth to the rightful preyers of his frend," therfor 
have I yeven 5 thee a suffisaunt Astrolabie as for 
oure orizonte, 6 compowned 7 after the latitude 
of Oxenford; upon which, by mediacion 8 of 
this litel tretis, I purpose to teche thee a cer- 
tein nombre of conclusions 9 apertening 10 to 
the same instrument. I seye a certein of con- 
clusiouns, for three causes. The furste cause 
is this: truste wel that alle the conclusiouns 
that han u ben founde, or elles n possibly 
mighten be founde in so noble an instrument 
as an Astrolabie, ben 13 unknowe perfitly to any 
mortal man in this regioun, as I suppose. 
Another cause is this: that sothly, 14 in any 
tretis of the Astrolabie that I have seyn, 15 there 
ben 13 some conclusions that wole le nat in alle 
thinges performen hir 17 bihestes; 18 and some 
of hem ben I3 to 19 harde to thy tendre age of ten 
yeer to conseyve. 20 This tretis, divided in fyve 
parties, 21 wole 16 1 shewe thee under ful lighte 22 
rewles 23 and naked wordes in English ; for 
Latin ne canstow 24 yit but smal, my lyte 25 
sone. But natheles, 26 suffyse to thee thise 
trewe conclusiouns in English, as wel as 
suffyseth to thise noble clerkes Grekes thise 
same conclusiouns in Greek, and to Arabiens 
in Arabik, and to Jewes in Ebrew, and to the 
Latin folk in Latin; whiche Latin folk han 11 
hem 27 furst out of othre diverse langages, and 
writen in hir 17 owne tonge, that is to sein, 28 
in Latin. And God wot, 29 that in alle thise 
langages, and in many mo, 30 han 11 thise con- 
clusiouns ben 31 suffisantly lerned and taught, 
and yit by diverse rewles, 23 right as diverse 
pathes leden diverse folk the righte wey to 
Rome. Now wol I prey meekly every discret 
persone that redeth or hereth this litel tretis, 
to have my rewde 32 endyting 33 for excused, 
and my superfluite of wordes, for two causes. 
The firste cause is, for-that 34 curious 35 en- 
dyting 33 and hard sentence 3a is ful hevy 37 
atones 38 for swich 39 a child to lerne. And 

1 eager 2 prayer, request 3 then 4 much 6 given 
6 horizon 7 composed 8 means 9 problems and 
their solutions I0 pertaining n have 12 else 13 are 
14 truly 15 seen 16 will I7 their 18 promises 19 too 20 un- 
derstand 21 parts 22 easy 23 rules 24 knowest thou 
26 little 26 nevertheless w them 28 say 29 knows 
30 more 31 been 32 rude 33 composition 34 because 
36 elaborate 36 meaning, sense 37 difEcult 38 at 
once 39 such 



the seconde cause is this, that sothly l me- 
semeth 2 betre to wryten unto a child twyes 3 
a good sentence, than he forgete it ones. 4 
And, Lowis, yif 5 so be that I shewe thee in my 
lighte 6 English as trewe conclusiouns touching 
this matere, and naught 7 only as trewe but 
as many and as subtil conclusiouns as ben 8 
shewed in Latin in any commune tretis of the 
Astrolabie, con me the more thank; 9 and 
preye God save the king, that is lord of this 
langage, and alle that him feyth bereth 10 and 
obeyeth, everech " in his degree, the more 12 and 
the lasse. 3 But considere wel, that I ne usurpe 
nat to have founde this werk of my labour or of 
myn engin. 14 I nam 15 but a lewd 16 compila- 
tour 17 of the labour of olde Astrologiens, and 
have hit translated in myn English only for thy 
doctrine; and with this swerd 18 shal I sleen 19 
envye. 



BOETHIUS : DE CONSOLATIONE 
PHILOSOPHIAE 

BOOK III 

Prose IX 

"It suffyseth that I have shewed hider-to the 
forme of false welefulnesse, 20 so that, yif 5 thou 
loke now cleerly, the order of myn entencioun 
requireth from hennes-forth 21 to shewen thee 
the verray 22 welefulnesse." 

"For-sothe," ' quod I, "I see wel now that 
suffisaunce 23 may nat comen by richesses, ne 
power by reames, 24 ne reverence by dignitees, 
ne gentilesse 25 by glorie, ne joye by delices." 2B 

"And hast thou wel knowen the causes," 
quod she, "why it is?" 

"Certes, 27 me-semeth," quod I, "that I see 
hem right as though it were thorugh a litel 
clifte; 28 but me were levere 29 knowen hem 30 
more openly of thee." 

"Certes," quod she, "the resoun is al redy. 
For thilke 3l thing that simply is o 32 thing, 
with-outen any devisioun, the errour and folye 
of mankinde departeth and devydeth it, and 
misledeth it and transporteth from verray 22 

1 truly 2 it seems to me 3 twice 4 once 5 if 6 easy 
7 not 8 are 9 con thank means thank, be grateful 
10 bear n every one 12 greater 13 less "ingenuity 
15 am not 16 ignorant 17 compiler 18 sword 19 slay 
20 happiness 21 henceforth 22 true 23 sufficiency 
24 kingdoms 26 good breeding 2S pleasures 27 cer- 
tainly 28 cleft, crack 29 liefer, preferable 30 them 
31 that 32 one 



' I 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



and parfil good to goodes that ben ' falsi- and 
unparfit. 1 Bui sey me this. Wenesl ; ' thou 
that he, thai hath nede of power, thai him ' ne 
lakketh no thing .'" 

" Nay," quoa 1. 

"Certes, quod she, "thou seysl a-right. 
For vil r ' so be thai ther is a thing, thai in any 
partye ' be febler of power, certes, as in that, 
ii mol ; nedes ben aedy of foreine s help." 

" Righl so is it," quod 1. 

"Suffisaunce and power ben thanne of <>" 
kinde?" '" 

"So semeth it," quod I. 

"And demest 1 thou," quod she, "thai a 
thing thai is of this manere, thai is to seyn," 
sufhsaunl and mighty, oughte ben '•' despysed, 
or elles thai ii be righl digne l, of reverence 
aboven alle thing 

"Certes, quod I, "it nis no doute, thai it is 
righl worthy to ben reverenced." 

" l ,.u " us," quod she, "adden thanne rever- 
ence io sufnsaunce ami to power, so that we 
demen ,: ' thai thise three thinges ben al o " 
thing." 

"Certes," quod 1, "la1 us adden it, yif we 
wolen " graunten the sothe." " 

"What demest' thou thanne.'" quod she; 

"is thai a derk thing am! rial noble, that is 
suffisaunt, reverent, ami mighty, or elles that 
it is righl noble and righl deer by celebritee 
of renoun? Consider thanne," quod she, "as 
we ban ls graunted her bifom," that he that 
ne hath nede of no thing, ami is most mighty 

ami most digne 1 ' of honour, yif him nedeth any 

deemesse of renoun, which deernesse he mighte 

nai graunten oi him self, SO that, for lakkc 
of thilke -'" deernesse, he mighte seme the 

febeler on any syde or the more out > 
Glose:*' This is to seyn, nay; for w 
thai is suffisaunt, mighty, and reverent, deer- 
nesse of renoun folweth of the forseyde 111 thinges; 

he hath it al rely of his suffisaunce, 

Boece, "1 may nat," quod l, "denye it; hut 
1 mot ' graunte, as it is, that this thing he right 
celebrable by deernesse of renoun and no- 
blesse." 

"Thanne folweth it," quod she, "that we 
adden deemesse of renoun to the three for- 
seyde thinges, so that ther ne l»e amonges hem 
no difference .'" 
"This is a consequence," <.\\\od 1. 

1 ,\u- 'imperfect 'thinkest * to him * if 'part 

' must 'foreign, external "one "nature 

" s.,\ "to be " worth] "lei "consider "'will 

h "have "heretofore "thai u an explanation 

" aforesaid 



"This thing thanne," quod she, "that ne hath 
nede oi no foreine ' thing, ami that mav don 

alle thinges by hise strengthes, and that is 
noble ami honourable, nis nat that a mery 1 

thing and a joyful . J " 

"Bui whennes," ' quod l, "that anysorwe 4 
mighte comen to this thing that is swiche,' 

certes, 1 mav nat t Iiinkr." 

"Thanne moten " we graunte," quod she, 

"that this thing he ful of gladnessc, yif 7 the 
forseyde ' thinges hen sothe; " and certes, also 
mote " we graunten that sulVisaunce, power, 

noblesse, reverence, ami gladnesse ben only 
dyverse by names, hut hir 10 substaunce hath 
no diversitee." 
"It mot ' needlv " been so," quod I. 

"Thilke u thing thanne," |: ' quod she, "that 

is oon " and simple in his '■'' nature, the wikked- 

nesse of men departeth it and devydeth it; 
and whan thev enforcen hem " to geten " 
partye ls of a thing that ne hath no part, they 
ne geten hem neither thilke ll partye that nis 
mm, 1 " ne the thing al hool ,Q that they ne desire 
nat." 

" In which manere?" quod 1. 

"Thilke man," quod she, "that secheth ;i 

richesses to Been povertee, he ne travaileth B 

him nat for lo gcte 17 power; for he hath 
levere " hen derk and vvl ; and cck u with- 
draweth from him self many naturel delyts, 
for he nolde" lese •'" the mouoye that lie hath 
assembled. Hut certes, in this manere he ne 

geteth him nat suffisaunce that power for 
leteth," and that moleslie : ' s prikketh, and that 
fill he maketh out cast, and that derkenesse 

hydeth. Ami certes, he that desireth only 
power, he wasteth ami scatereth richesse, and 
despyseth delyts, ami eek M honour that is 
withoute power, ne lie ne preyseth *• glorie 

no thing. :; " Certes, thus seest thou wel, that 

manye thinges faylen to him; for he hath som- 

tvme defaute of many ncccssitces, and many 
anguisshes byten" him; and whan he ne may 
nat don '' tho M defautes a wev, he forleteth •'' 
to hen mighty, and that is the thing that In- 
most desireth. And right thus mav I maken 
senihlahle : " rcsouns :i5 of honours, and of 
glorie, ami of delyts. For so as every of thise 
forseyde ' thinges is the same that thise other 

'external -pleasant 'whence 'sorrow 'such 
'must ; if 'aforesaid 'true "their "necessarily 
"that "then "one "its "them ,T ge1 "part 
"none "whole "seeks "labors " lief er, rather 
"also "would not '-'" lose "forsakes "annoyance 
"praises, esteems »°no1 at all "bite "put 
"those "similar "arguments 



TRANSLATION OF BoKTIIIUS 



15 



thinges ben, thai is to seyn, ;il oon thing, who so 
thai ever sckeih to geten thai ' '"in of thise, 
and rial thai ' other, he ne geteth rial that 8 he 
desire th." 

Boece. "Whal seysl thou thanne, yif that a 
man coveiteth to geten alle thise thinges to- 
gider?" 

Philosophic, "('cries, " (|iio(l she, "I wolde 
seye, thai he wolde geten him sovereyn :| blis- 
fulnesse; but thai shal he nal finde in tho 
thinges thai I have shewed, thai ne tnowen 4 
nai yeven r ' thai ' they beheten." " 

"('(TICS, nO," <|U()(I 1. 

"Thanne," * 1 x t < >< 1 she, "ne sholden men nat 
by no wey seken 7 blisfulnesse in swiche thinges 
as men wene 8 thai they ne mowen '' yeven '' but 
" thing senglely "' 01 alle thai men seken." 

"1 graunte wel," quod I; "ne" nosother 18 
tiling ne may ben sayd." 

"Now liasi thou thanne," quod she, "the 
forme and the causes of false welcfulnesse. 
Now tome l:i and llitle " the even of thy 
thought ; for ther shall thou sen Ir ' anon '" Ihilke 
verrav " blisfulnesse that 1 liave bihight 18 
thee." 

"('cries, " quod I, "it is elecr and open, 
thogh it were to a Minde man; and thai shew- 
edest thou me fill wel a lilel her biforn, whan 

thou enforcedesl thee to shewe me the causes 
of the falsi- blisfulnesse. For bul yif 1 " I be 

bigyled, thanne is ihilke- the vcrray blisful- 

nesse parfit, 81 thai parfitly maketh a man 
suffisaunt, mighty, honourable, noble, and ful 
of gladnesse. And, for thou shalt wel knowe 
thai I have wel understonden thise thinges 
with-in my herte, I knowe wel thai ihilke blis- 
fulnesse, that may verrayly yeven r ' oon of the 
forseyde thinges, sin a they ben al oon, I 

knowe, douteles, thai ihilke thing is the fullc 

blisfulnesse." 

Philosophic. "() my none," 88 quod she, 
"by this opinioun 1 seye "" that thou art blisful, 
yif thou putte this ther-to that I shal seyn."' 2 ' 1 

"What is that?" quod I. 

"Trowest 88 thou that ther he any tiling in 
thise erthely mortal toumhling thinges* that 
may hringen this eslat ?" 

"('cries, " quod I, "I Irowe it naught;-'" and 
thou hast shewed me wel that over 27 Ihilke 
good ther nis no-thing more to Inn desired." 



• may 

" singly 



give 

nor 



1 the 2 what ' supreme 
'promise 'seek 'think "one 

"truer "turn "flit, move "see l 'a1 

"true "promised '"unless "that, thai si 1 

"perfect M since " nursling 2 * say "believest 
• not " beyond 



"Thise thinges thanne," quod she, "thai is 

to Sey, erthely suflisaunce and power and 

swiche ' thinges, either they semen 8 lykenesses 
of vcrray ' good, or cllcs il scinclh thai they 

yeve to mortal folk a maner of g les thai ne 

ben nat parfit; but ihilke good thai is vcrray 
and parfit,' thai may they nal yeven." 

" I a< orde me wel," quod I. 

"Thanne," quod she, "for as mochel 8 as 

thou has) knowen which is Ihilke vcrray blisful- 
nesse, and eek " whichc 7 ihilke thinges ben 
thai lyen H falsly blisfulnesse, thai is to seyn, 
thai by deceite semen 8 verray goodes, now 
behoveth thee to knowe whennes " and where 
thou mowe "' seke thilke verray blisfulnesse." 

"Certes," quod I, "thai desire I grcelly, 

and have abiden " longe lyme to herknen it." 

" Hut for as nioche," quod she, "as il lykelh t8 

to my disciple Plato, in his book of 'in Tiweo,' 
thai in right litel thinges men sholden bisechen " 
the help of God, whal jugesl thou thai be now 

to done," so thai we may deserve lo finde the 
Sete ir ' of Ihilke verrav good?" 

"Certes," quod I, " I deme '" that we shollcn 

clepen 17 the Fader of alle goodes; for with 

outcn him nis ther no thing founden a right." 
"Thou Seyst a right," quod she; and bigan 
anon to singen right thus: — 

METRE IX 
"O thou Fader, creator of hevene and of 

erlhes, that governesl ihis world by perdur- 
able l8 resoun, thai comaundesl the tymes to 
gon ■• from 80 sin 81 thai age 88 hadde beginninge; 
thou thai dwellesl thy self ay stedefasl and 

stable, and yevesl '"'' alle olhre ihingcs to ben 

moeved; 84 ne foreine 88 causes necesseden ; '" 

thee never lo compounc 27 werk of lloleringe 2M 

matere, bul only the forme of soverein 89 good 

y set with in Ihce with oule envve, thai niocvcde 
thee freely. Thou that arl alder favrrst,'"' bcringc : " 
the faire world in thy thought, forincdesl : '~ this 

world to the lykenesse semblable of thai faire 

world in thy thought. 'I'hou drawest al thing 
of thy soverein 89 ensaumpler, 88 and comaundesl 

that this world, parfitlicne : " y-maked, 88 have 

'such 'seem 'true 'perfect 'much "also 
7 of what sort 'lie, impersonate 'whence 

10 mayst ll abided, waited "pleases "beseech 
14 do '"scat, dwelling-place "judge "call 
upon,prayto "everlasting "go '"forward 
'i since "finitetime "givesl "moved "external 
"compelled ' 7 compose " fluid "supreme '"fairest 
oi all '-bearing "didstform "model "perfectly 
aa made, formed 



16 



REGINALD PECOCK 



freely and absolul his parfil parlies.' Thou 

bindesl the elements by noumbres propor- 
cionables, that the colde thinges mowen ' 
acorden with the hote thinges, and the diye 
thinges with the moiste thinges; that the fyr, 
that is purest, ne flee' nat over hye, ne that 
the hevinesse ne drawe nal adoun over lowe 
tlu- erthes that ben plounged in the wateres. 
Thou knittest to gider the mene ' sowle of 
treble kinde, moevinge 8 alle thinges, and 
devydesl it by membres acordinge; and whan 
it is thus devyded, it hath asembled a moe- 
vinge 8 in to two roundes; 8 it goth to tome ; 
ayein 8 to him self, and envirouneth a ful deep 
thought, and torneth " the lievene by sem- 
blable 10 image. Thou by evene lyke " causes 

enhansest the SOWleS and the lasso'-' Ivves, and, 

ablinge 18 hem heye M by lighte cartes, 18 thou 

SOWesI '" hem in to hevene and in to erthe; and 
whan they hen eon verted i; to thee by thy 

benigne lawe, thou makesl hem retome ayein 1S 
to thee by ayein ledinge '" fyr. 

"O Fader, jdve '-'" thou to the thought to 
styen '•' up in to thy streite" sete, M and graunte 
him to enviroune the welle of good; and, the 
lighte v founde, graunte him to lulien u the 
clere sightes of his corage *' r ' in thee. And 
sealer lliou and tO-breke ™ thou the weightes 
and the cloudes of eithely hevinesse, and 
shyne thou by thy brightnesse. For thou art 
deernesse; thou art peysible '•' reste to debo 
naire - s folk; thou tliv self art biginninge, 
berer, leder, path, and terme;" to loke on 
thee, thai is our endc." so 



REGINALD PECOCK (i3 9 5?-i 4 6o?) 

THE REPRESSOR OF OVER MUCH 
BLAMING OF THE CLERGY 

PART l. CHAP, Mil 

A greet cause win thei of the lay parti which 

han ;i usid the hool :!: ' Bible or oonh the Newe 
Testamenl in her modris :l:1 langage han :u 
holde 8 * the seid " opinioun was this, that the 

1 parts •' may 8 ily 4 mean, middle * mov- 
ing 'orbs r turn 'back ''turns l0 similar 
"like '-'lesser " abling, raisin;; " high l * vehi- 
cles (for the souls) "plantesl lT turned l8 again 
"reductive, leading back "give, granl "mount 
"narrow "seat "fij "heart "break t<> pieces 
"peaceful " right thoughted "end "purpose 

» have " whole M mothers' •" hehl " said 



reeding in the Bible, namelich ' in the bis- 

torial parties of the Oold Testament and of the 
Newe, is miche ' delectable and sweete, and 
drawith the reders into a devocioun and a love 

to God and fro love and deinte :i of the world; 
as y ' have had her of experience upon suche 
reders and upon her'' now seid " disposicioun. 
And thanne bi cause that the seid reeding was 
to hem so graceful, and SO delectable, and into 

the seid" eende so profitable, it til into her 5 

conceit ; fortO trowe 8 ful soone, enformyng 
and tising " ther to unsufrlcient[l]i leerned 
clerkis, thai God had mad or purveied the 
Bible to mennis bihove 10 after" as it were or 
hi the utterist i: ' degre of his power and kun- 
nyng i:i for to so ordeyne, and therfore al the 
hoole " Bible (or, as summen trowiden, 18 the 
Newe Testament) schulde conteyne al that is 

to be doon in the lawe and service to God bi 

Cristen men, withoute nede to have ther-with 
eny doctrine. 1 " Yhe," and if y '' schal seie 1S 
what hath be "' seid to myn owne heering, 
sotheli •" it hath be seid to me thus, "that 
nevere man errid bi reding or studiyng in the 
Bible, neither env man mvghte erre i)i reeding 
in the Bible, and that for such cause as is now 
seid:" notwithstanding that ther is no book 
writen in the world hi which a man schal rather 
take an occasioun fortO erre, and that for ful 
gode and open trewe causis, whiche hen spoken 
and expressid in the ij. parti •'' of the hook 
clepid '• The Just Apprising of llofi Scripture}* 
But certis thei tooken her 5 mark amys: for 
thei puttiden M al her motyve"in heraffeccioun 
or wil fortO SO trowe; v and not in her 5 intel- 
leccioun of resoun; and in lijk maner doon 
wommen, for thei reulen hem silf as it were in 

alle her governauncis aflir her atTeccioun and 
not aflir resoun, or more aflir atTeccioun than 
after doom '" of resoun; hicause that alTeccioun 
in hem is ful strong and resoun in hem is litle, 
as for the more parti Of wommen. 

And therfore even right as a man jugid 
amys and were foule begilid and took his 
mark amys, if he schulde trowe that in honv 
were ;tl the cheer, al the comfort, al the thrift 
which is in al other mete, bi-cause that honv is 
sweltist to him of alle othere metis; so he is 
begilid and takith his mark amys, if he therfore 



'especially 'much, very 'delight 4 I * their 
"s.iiil 'imagination 'believe 'enticing 

10 behoof "according "uttermost "ability 

11 whole "believed "teaching "yea ,B say 
"been '°truly -'part "called "a book by 
Pecock -'put "motive "decision 






Till-: REPRESSOR OF OVKR MUCH BLAMING OK THE CLERGY 17 



trowe thai in llnli Scripture is al the doctrine 

necessarie l<> man lor lo serve <'.o<l ami fortO 
kepe liis lawe; hi cause thai Holi Scripture 
is so miche ' delectable, and for - that hi thilk :| 
delectacioun he bringith yn myche cheer and 
coumforl and strengthith the wil forto the more 
do and sulfrc for God. And so me thinkith 
to suche men good counseil were forto scie lo 
hem, thai thei be waar of childrenys perel, 4 
which is that bi-cause children loven sweete 
meetis and drinkis ful miche, therfore whanne 

thei Cornell tO feeslis thei feeden hem with 

sweete stonding-potagis B and with sweete 

hake-metis," and leven 7 olhere suhstancial 
and necessarie metis; trowing N that bi so 
miche tho" sweete meeds hen die more holsum, 
how miche more thei hen swetler than othere 
metis: and therfore at the laste thei geten to 
hem therbi bothe losse of dewe nurisching and 
also sumtymc vilonie. 10 Certis in lijk maner y 
have wiste suche men, that han " so over 
miche 12 yeven hem i:i to reding in the Bible 
aloone, have gete to hem losse" of sufficient 
and profitable leernyng which in other wheris 15 
thei mighten have gete, 10 and also vilonie forto 
avowe and warante that thei couthen 17 the 
trewe sentence 18 and trewe understanding of 
the Bible, whanne and where thei not couthen lB 
so understonde, neither couthen lu mentene 20 

1 much, very 2 because 8 that same * peril, 
danger 6 A dish made variously of boiled apples, 
sweet wine, honey or sugar and currants, almonds, 
etc. Recipes are given in Two Fifteenth Century 
Cook hooks, pp. 15 and 29. ° ])ics and pasties 

1 neglect 8 thinking 9 those 10 injury "have 
12 much ,8 devoted themselves M loss l6 whercs, i.e. 
places 18 got l7 knew l8 meaning 18 could 20 maintain 



what thei tlier ynne undersioden, and also 
forto avowe and warante that in the Bible 
were miche more and profitabiler and of other 
soort kunnyng ' than can llier-y.-i he founde. 
And therfore to alle suche men mai be seid 
what is seid Proverbs XXV. c c. 2 in sentence 
thus: Thou hast founde hony, etc t her of what 
is ynough and no more; lest thou overfillid 
caste it up out ayen;' and Untune is it to Ilia 
vilonie: and what is wrilcn aftir in the sam< 
chapiter there iii sentence thus: Forto ele 
miche of hony is not good to the eter. So that 
whanne-evere thou takisl upon dice forto 
understonde ferther in the Bible than thi wit ' 
may or can therto suffice withoute help of a 
suhstancial clerk, lhanne etist thou of hony 
more than ynough, and doost ayens r> the 
bidding of Scinl Poul, Romans xij°. c. soone 
after the higynnyng." And whanne thou 
attendist forto leeme Holi Scripture, and 

attendisl not (her with forto have eny other 
leernyng of philsophie or of divynile, Iii thin 
owne studie in bookis ther-of maad 7 or hi 
teching and informacioun of sum sad clerk s 
yovun " to thee, thaime thou etist hony a loon 
and feedist thee with hony oonli. And this 
feding schal turne into thin 10 unhoolsunines," 
right as if thou schuldist etc in bodili maner 
noon other mete than hony, it schulde nol he 
to thee hoolsum. 



'knowledge 2 Chap. 25 8 again * intelligence 
8 against 8 Romans 12:3-6 7 made 8 trustworth 7 
scholar v given lu thine " ill health 



THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 



SIR THOMAS MALORY (i 4 oo?-i 4 7o) 



LE MORTE DARTHUR 
BOOK XXI. CAPITULUM IIIJ 

Than were they condesended ' that kyng 
Arthure and Syr Morel red shold mete betwyxte 
bothe thcyr hoostes, and everyche of them 
shold bryngc fourtene persones; and they came 
wyth thys word unto Arthure. Than sayd 
he, "I am glad that thys is done." And so he 
wente in to the felde. And whan Arthure 
shold departe, he warned al hys hoost that, 
and 2 they see ony swerde drawen, "Look ye 
come on fyersly, 3 and slee that traytour Syr 
Mordred, for I in noo wyse truste hym." 
In lyke wyse Syr Mordred warned his hoost 
that, "And 2 ye see ony swerde drawen, look 
that ye come on fyersly, 3 and soo slee * alle that 
ever before you stondcth, for in no wyse I wyl 
not truste for thys treatyse ; 5 for I knowe wel 
my fader wyl be avenged on me." And soo 
they mette as theyr poyntemente " was, and 
so they were agreyd and accorded thorouly; 
and wyn was fette 7 and they dranke. Rvght 
soo came an adder oute of a lvtel hethe s 
busshe, and hyt stonge a knyght on the foot; 
and whan the knyght felte hym stongen, he 
looked doun and sawe the adder, and than he 
drewe his swerde to slee the adder, and thought 
of none other hanue. And whan the hoost on 
bothe partyes l0 saw that swerde drawen, than 
they blewe beamous," trumpettes, and horneSj 
ami shouted grymly. 8 And so bothe hoostes 
dressyd '-' hem '' to gyders." And kyng Arthur 
took his hors ami sayd, "Alias! thys unhappy 
day," and so rode to his part ye; and Svr 
Mordred in like wyse. And never was there 
seen a more doolfuller bataylle in no Crysten 



■agreed -if 8 fiercely 4 slay B treaty "appoint- 
nu-nt 'fetched 8 heather ''himself '"sides " trum- 
pets or horns "arranged, arrayed "themselves 

14 together 



londe; for there was but russhyng and rydyng, 
iVwnyng ' and strykyng, and many a grymme 
worde was there spoken cyder 2 to other, and 
many a dedely stroke. But ever kyng Arthur 
rode thorugh-oute the bataylle of Syr Mordred 
many tymes, and dyd ful nobly as a noble 
kyng shold, and at al tymes he faynted never, 
and Svr Mordred that day put hym in devoyr 3 
and in grete perylle. 

And thus they faughtc alle the longe day, and 
never stynted ' tyl the noble knyghtes were 
laved to the eolde erthe; and ever they faught 
stylle tyl it was nere nyghte, and by that tynie 
was there an hondred thousand layed deed 5 
upon the down. Thenne was Arthure wode 6 
wrothe oute of mesure, whan he sawe his peple 
so slayn from hym. Thenne the kyng loked 
aboute hym, and thenne was he ware, 7 of al 
hys hoost and of al his good knyghtes were 
lefte no moo on lyve 8 but two knyghtes, that 
one was Syr Lucan de Butlcre, and his broder 
Syr Bedwere; and they were ful sore wounded. 
"Jhesu, mercy," sayd the kyng,' "where are 
al my noble knyghtes becomen? Alas! that 
ever I shold see thys dolcfull day, for now," 
sayd Arthur, "I am come to myn ende. But 
wolde to God that I wystc 9 where were that 
traytour Syr Mordred that hath caused alle 
thys meschyef." Thenne was kyng Arthure 
ware where Svr Mordred lenyd l0 upon his 
swerde emonge a grete hepe of deed men. 
" Now gyve me my spere," sayd Arthur unto 
Syr Lucan, "for yonder I have espyed the 
traytour that alle thys woo hath wrought." 
"Syr, late 11 hym be," sayd Syr Lucan, "for 
he is unhappv; and yf ye passe thys unhappy 
dav, ye shalle be rvght wel revengyd upon hym. 
Good lord, remembre ye of your nyghtes 
dreme, and what the spyrytc of Syr Gauwayn 
tolde you this nyght, yet God of his grete 
goodnes hath preserved you hyderto; therfore 
for Goddcs sake, my lord, leye of u by thys, 13 
for blessyd by M God, ye have wonnethe felde; 

* f oining, thrusting 2 either 8 duty 'ceased 
"dead B crazj 'aware B alive "knew 
10 leaned " let '- leave off 13 at this point " be 



18 



LE MORTE D ARTHUR 



19 



for here we ben thre on lyve, 1 and wyth Syr 
Mordred is none on lyvc. And yf ye leve of 2 
now, thys wycked day of desteynye is paste." 
"Tyde me deth, betyde me lyf," sayth the kyng, 
"now I see hym yonder allonc, he shal never 
escape myn handes; for at a better avaylle 3 
shal I never have hym." "God spede you 
wel," sayd Syr Bedwere. Thenne the kyng 
gate hys spere in bothe his handes, and ranne 
toward Syr Mordred cryeng, "Tratour, now 
is thy deth day come." And whan Syr Mor- 
(lii'd herde Syr Arthur, he ranne untyl 4 hym 
with his swerde drawen in his hande. And 
there kyng Arthur smote Syr Mordred under 
the shelde wyth a foyne 5 of his spere thorugh- 
oute the body more than a fadom." And whan 
Syr Mordred felte that he had hys dethes 
wounde, he thryst 5 hym self wyth the myght 
that he had up to the bur 7 of kynge Arthurs 
spere. And right so he smote his fader Arthur 
wyth his swerde holden in bothe his handes, on 
the syde of the heed, that the swerde persyd 8 
the helmet and the brayne panne, and ther- 
wylhall Syr Mordred fyl 10 starke deed to the 
erthe. And the nobyl Arthur fyl in a swoune 
to the erthe, and there he swouned ofte tymes. 
And Syr Lucan de Butlere and Syr Bedwere 
oftymes heve n hym up; and soo waykely '- 
they ledde hym betwyxte them bothe to a lytcl 
chapel not ferre 13 from the see syde. And 
whan the kyng was there, he thought hym 
wel eased. 

Thenne herde they people cryc in the felde. 
"Now goo thou, Syr Lucan," sayd the kyng, 
"and do " me to wyte 15 what bytokencs that 
noyse in the felde." So Syr Lucan departed, 
for he was grevously wounded in many places. 
And so as he yede, 10 he sawe and herkened by 
the mone lyght, how that pyllars and robbers 
were comen in to the felde to pylle and robbe 
many a ful noble knyghte of brochys and 
bedys, of many a good rynge, and of many a 
ryche jewel; and who that were not deed al 
oute, 1 7 there they slewe theym for theyr harneys 18 
and theyr rychesse. Whan Syr Lucan under- 
stode thys wcrke, he came to the kyng assone 
as he myght, and tolde hym al what he had 
herde and seen. "Thcrfore, be my rede," 19 sayd 
Syr Lucan, "it is beste that we brynge you to 
somme towne." "I wolde it were soo," sayd 
the kyng. 



■alive 2 off 3 opportunity 4 unto s thrust 
•fathom 'handle 8 pierced "skull "Tell 
11 raised '-weakly, weak i:i far l * cause I6 know 
18 went 17 entirely 18 armor ly by my advice 



CAPITULUM V 

"But I may not stonde, myn hede werches ' 
soo. A, Syr Launcelot," sayd kyng Arthur, 
"thys day have I sore myst the. Alas! that 
ever I was ayenst 2 the, for now have I my 
dethe, wherof Syr Gauwayn me warned in my 
dreme." Than Syr Lucan took up the kyng 
the one parte, and Syr Bedwere the other parte, 
and in the lyftyng the kyng sowned, 3 and Syr 
Lucan fyl in a sowne 4 wyth the lyfte, that the 
parte of his guttes fyl oute of his bodye. And 
therwyth the noble knyghtes hcrte braste. 5 
And whan the kyng awake, he behelde Syr 
Lucan how he laye foomyng at the mowth, and 
parte of his guttes laye at his feet. "Alas!" 
sayd the kyng, "thys is to me a ful hevy syght 
to see thys noble duke so deye for my sake, for 
he wold have holpen me that had more nede 
of helpe than I. Alas! he wold not com- 
playne hym, hys herte was so sette to helpe 
me. Now Jhesu have mercy upon hys soule." 
Than Syr Bedwere wepte for the deth of his 
brother. "Leve thys mornyng and wepyng," 
sayd the kyng, "for al this wyl not avaylle me; 
for wyte 6 thou wel, and 7 I myght lyve my self, 
the deth of Syr Lucan wolde greve me ever 
more, but my tyme hyeth 8 fast," sayd the 
kyng. "Therfore," sayd Arthur unto Syr 
Bedwere, "take thou Excalybur, my good 
swerde, and goo with it to yonder water syde, 
and whan thou comest there, I charge the 9 
thro we my swerde in that water, and come 
ageyn and telle me what thou there seest." 
"My lord," sayd Bedwere, "your commaunde- 
ment shal be doon, and lyghtly brynge you 
worde ageyn." 

So Syr Bedwere departed, and by the waye 
he behelde that noble swerde, that the pomel 
and the hafte was al of precyous stones; and 
thenne he sayd to hym self, "Yf I throwe this 
ryche swerde in the water, therof shal never 
come good, but harme and losse." And 
thenne Syr Bedwere hydde Excalybur under 
a tree. And so as sone as he myght he came 
ageyn unto the kyng, and sayd he had ben at 
the water, and had throwen the swerde in to 
the water. "What sawe thou there?" sayd 
the kyng. "Syr," he sayd, "I sawe no thygne 
but wawes 10 and wyndes." "That isuntrewly 
sayd of the," B sayd the kynge. "Therfore 
goo thou lyghtelye 11 ageyn, and do my com- 

1 aches 2 against 3 swooned 4 swoon 6 burst 
6 know 7 if 8 hastens B thee 10 waves 

11 quickly 



20 



SIR THOMAS MALORY 



maundemente; as thou arte to me leef 1 and 
dere, spare ool but throwe it in." 'Than Syr 
Bedwere retomed ageyn, and took the swerde 
in hys hande, and than liym thought synne and 
shame to throwe awaye that nobyl swerde; 
and so efte ' he hydde the swerde, and retomed 
ageyn and tolde to the kyng that he had ben 
at tin- water, and done Ins commaundemente. 
"What sawe thou there?" sayd the kyng. 
"Syr," he sayd, "1 sawe no thynge but the 
waters wappe :i and wawes wanne." ' "A, 
traytour, untrewe," sayd kyng Arthur, "now 
hast thou betrayed me twyse. Who wold have 
wente 5 that thou that hast been to me so leef ' 
and dere, and thou arte named a noble knyghte, 
and wold bet rave me for the riehesse of the 
swerde? Hut now goo ageyn lyghtly, for thy 
longe taryeng putteth me in grete jeopardye 
of my lyf, for 1 have taken eolde; and but-vf " 
thou i\o now as 1 byd the, yf ever 1 may see 
the 1 shal slee ; tin- s myn owne handes, for 
thou woldest for my ryehe swerde see me 
dede." * Thenne Syr Bedwere departed, and 
wente to the swerde, and lyghtly took hit up, 
and wente to the water syde, and there he 

bounde tin- gyrdyl aboute the hyltes, and 

thenne he threwe the swerde as farre in to the 
water as he myght. And there earn an arme 
and an hande above the water and mette it, 
and caughl it, and so shoke it thryse and 
braundysshed; and than vanysshed awaye 
the hande wvth the swerde in the water. So 
Syr Bedwere came ageyn to the kyng ami tolde 
hym what he sawe. 

" Mis'. '" sayd the kyng, "helpe me hens,' 
for I drede " me I have taryed over longe." 
Than Syr bedwere loke the kyng upon his 
backe, and so wente wvth hvm to that water 
syde, and whan they were at the water syde, 
evyn fast " by the banke hoved ' :! a lytyl barge 
wvth many fayr ladyes in hit, and emonge hem 
al was a queue, and al they had blaeke hoodes, 
and al they we|ite and shryked " whan they sawe 
kyng Arthur. "Now put me in to the barge," 
sayd the kyng; and so he dyd softelve. And 
there reeeyved hvm thre queues wvth grete 
mornyng, and soo they sette hem doun, and in 
one of their lappes kyng Arthur laved hys 
heed, and than that queue savd, "A, dere 
broder, why have ye taryed so longe from me? 
Alas! this wounde on your heed hath caught 
overmoche colde." And soo than they rowed 

'beloved 'again 8 lap, beal 'grow dark 
'thoughl "unless 7 slay 'thee 'dead l0 hence 
11 fear « dose l * hovered, Boated M shrieked 



from the londe, and Syr Bedwere bchelde all 
tho ' ladyes goo from hvm.- Than Syr Bed- 
were cryed, "A, my lord Arthur, what shal 
become of me, now ye goo from me and leve 
me here allone emonge myn enemves?" 
"Comfort thy self," sayd the kyng, "and doo 
as wel as thou mayst, for in me is no truste 
for to truste in. For 1 wyl in to the vale of 
Awlvon, to hele me of my grevous wounde. 
And yf thou here never more of me, praye for 
my soule." But ever the qucnes and ladyes 
wepte and shryched, 3 that hit was pyte ' to 
here. And assone as Syr Bedwere had loste 
the syght of the baarge, be wepte and waylled, 
and so took the foreste; 6 and so he wente al 
that nvght, and in the mornyng he was ware 8 
betwyxte two holtes hore ' of a chapel and 
an ermytage. 8 

CAPITULUM VJ 

Than was Syr Bedwere glad, and thyder he 
wente; and whan he came in to the chapel, 
he sawe where lave an heremyte grovelyng on al 
foure, there fast by a tombe was newe graven. 
Whan the eremyte sawe Syr Bedwere, he knewe 
hym wel, for he was but lytel tofore bysshop 
of Caunterburye thai Syr Mordred denied. " 
"Syr," sayd Syr Bedwere, "what man is there 
entred that ye praye so fast fore?" 10 "Fayr 
sone," sayd the heremyte, "I wote " not 
verayly but by my demyvng. 1 - But thys nvght, 
at mydnyght, here came a nombre of laches 
and broughte hyder a deed core, 18 and prayed 
me to berye hym, and here they offeryd an 
hondred tapers, and they gaf me an hondred 
besauntes." " "Alas," savd Svr bedwere, 
"that was my lord kyng Arthur that here 
lveth buryed in thys chapel." Than Syr 
bedwere swowned, and whan he awoke he 
prayed the heremyte he myght abyde wvth 
hym stylle IS there, to lyve wvth fastyng and 
prayers: "For from hens 18 wyl I never goo," 
sayd Syr bedwere, "by my wylle, but al the 
dayes of my lyf here to praye for my lord 
Arthur." "Ye are welcome to me," sayd the 
heremyte, "for I knowe you better than ye 
wene" that I doo. Ye are the bolde bedwere, 
and the fill noble duke Syr Luean de butlere 
was your broder." Thenne Syr Bedwere 
tolde the heremyte alio as ye have herde to 

1 those 2 :'.(•. Bedwere 'shrieked 'pity 'forest 
he perceived 7 hoary forests ' hermitage ' put to 
Bight l0 for "know "supposition ''corpse "gold 
coins "always w hence 17 think 



WILLIAM CAXTON 



I 



fore. So there bode ' Syr Bedwere with the 
hermyte thai was tofore bysshop of Caunter- 
burye, and there Syr Bedwere pul upon hym 
poure ■' clothes, and servyd the bermyte ful 
lowly in fastyne and in prayers. 

Thus of Arthur I fynde never more wryton 

in boookes thai ben auctorysed,' nor more of 
the veray certente ' of Ins deth herde 1 never 
redde, bu1 thus was he ledde aweye in a shyppe 

wlierin were line queiics: llial one was kyng 

Arthurs sysier quene Morgan !<■ Fay, the other 
was the quene of North Galys, the thyrd was 
the quene of the Waste Londes. Also there 
was Nynyve the chyef Lady of the Lake, that 

had wedded I'elleas the good knyght, and this 
lady had doon moehe for kyng Arthur, for she 
wold never snlTre Syr I'elleas to l>e in tlOO place 
where he shold be in daunger of his lyf, and 
so he lyved to the utlermesl of his dayes wyth 
hyr in grctc rcstc. More of the deth of kyng 
Arthur COUde 1 never fynde, Imt that la dyes 
brought hym to his burvcllys, 5 and suehe one 
was DUryed there thai the hermyte hare wyt- 

nesse, thai somtyme was bysshop of Caunter- 

buiye, bu1 yet the heremyle knewe not in ccr 
layn that he was verayly the body of kyng 
Arthur, for thys tale Syr Bedwere, knyght of 
the Table Kounde, made it to be wryton. 

WILLIAM CAXTON (i422?-t 49 i) 

PREFACE TO THE BOOKE OF KNKYDOS 

After dyverse werkes made, translated, and 
achieved, havyng noo " werke in hande, I 
sittyng in my studye, where as 7 laye many 

dyverse paunflettis 8 and bookys, happened that 

to my hande cam a lytyl booke in I'renshe, 
whiche late" was translated OUte of Lalyn by 

some noble elerke of Fraunce; whiche booke 

is named Lncydos, made in Lalyn by that no- 
ble poele and grctc clcrke Vyrgylc. Whiche 
booke I sawe over and redde therin how, after 

the general! destruccyon of the grctc Troye, 
Lucas departed, berynge his olde fader An 

chises upon his sholdrcs, his lilyl son Volus 
on 10 his honde, 11 his wyfc wyth moche other 
people folowyngc; and how he shypped and 
departed; wyth all thystOiye lJ of his adventures 
that he had <>r i:i he cam to the achievement of 
his conquest of Ylalye, as all a longc shall be 
shewed in this present boke. In whiche booke 

1 abode 2 poor 'authorized * certainty 'tomb 

"no 7 where 'pamphlets "lately "'in " hand 

1 - 1 1 u ■ history ''before 



I had grete playsyr by cause of the fayr and 

honest lennes and wordes in brenshe; whvchc 
1 never sawe to fore lyke, ne none so plavsaunl 

lie so wel ordred. Whiche booke, as me 

scmed, sholde lie moche ' rctpiysytc '■' to noble 
nun tO sec, as wel for the eloquence as the 
hystoryes; how wel that, many hondcrd 
ycrys passed, was the sayd booke of Eneydos 
wvlh olhcr werkes made and Icrncd dayly in 
SCOhs, 8 spccyally in Ylalye and other places; 
whiche hislorye the sayd Vyrgylc made in 
metre. And whan I had advyscd me in this 

sayd boke, I delybered ' and concluded to 

translate it in to Englysshe, and lorlhwvlh 

toke a penne and ynke and wrote a leef or 

tweync, whychc I ovcrsawc agayn to COreCte 
it; and whan I sawe the fayr and straunge 
termeS therin, I doubted r ' thai it sholde not 

please some gentylmen whiche late blamed me, 
sayeng that in my translacyons I had over 
curyous ' termes, which coude not be under 
Stande 7 of COmyn peple, and desired me to use 
olde and homely termes in my translacyons. 
And fayn woldc I satysfyc every man; and, 
so tO doo, toke an olde boke and redde therin; 

and certaynly the Englysshe was so rude and 
brood" that I coude nol wele understande it; 

and also my lordc abbot of Wcslmvnsler >\(^\ 

so shewe to me late certayn evydences 9 wryton 

in olde Lnglysshe for to reduce it in to our 

Englysshe now used, and certaynly it was 

wreton in SUChe wyse that it was more lyke to 
Dutche than Lnglysshe; I coude not reduce ne 
bryngc it to be undcrstonden. And certaynly 

our langage now used varyeth ferre 10 from that 

whiche was used and spoken whan I was borne. 
For we Englysshe men ben borne under the 

domynacyon of the mone, whiche is never 

Stedfaste but ever wavcryngc, wexynge one 

season and waneth and dyscreaseth u anothei 

season. And that comyn lJ Englysshe that is 
spoken in one sh\rc varyeth from a nolher, in 
so moche that in my dayes happened thai 

certayn marchauntes were in a ship in Tamyse 

for to have saylcd over the sec into Zclande, 
and, for lacke of wynde, thci taryed alle " 

Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe 

them. And one of ihcym named Shcffclde, 
a mercer, cam in to an hows and a\cd for mete 
and spccyally he awd after eggys, and the 

goode wyf answerde that she could speke no 

I'renshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for 

'very • requisite, desirable 'schools *di 
liberated 'feared ' curious, ornate 'understood 
• broad 'legal documents '" i.i i ''decreases 

" iiiiiin ia at the 



SIR JOHN BOURCHIER, LORD BERNERS 



he also coude speke no Frenshc, but wolde 
haw hadde egges; and she understode hym 
not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that 
he wolde have eyren. 1 Then the good wvf 
sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, 2 what 
sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, 
or eyren ? Certaynly it is hard to playse every 
man, by-cause of dyversite and chaunge of 
langage; for in these dayes every man that is 
in ony reputacyon in his countre wyll utter 
his commynycacyon and maters in suche maners 
and termes that fewe men shall understonde 
theym. And som honest and grete clerkes have 
ben wyth me and desired me to wryte the moste 
curyous 3 termes that I coude fynde. And thus, 
betwene playn, rude, and curyous, I stande 
abasshed. But in my judgemente the comyn 
termes that be dayly used ben lyghter to be 
understonde than the olde and auncyent 
Englysshe. And, foras-moche as this present 
booke is not for a rude uplondyssh ' man to 
laboure therein ne rede it, but onely for a clerke 
and a noble gentylman that feleth and under- 
stondeth in faytes 5 of armes, in love, and in 
noble chyvalrye, therfor in a meane bytwene 
bothe 1 have reduced and translated this sayd 
booke in our Englysshe, not over rude ne 
curyous, but in suche termes as shall be under- 
Standen, by Goddys grace accordynge to my 
copye. And yf ony man wyll entermete'in 
redyng of hit and fyndeth suche termes that 
he can not understande, late hym goo rede 
and lerne Vyrgyll or the Pystles of Ovyde, and 
ther he shall see and understonde lyghtly 7 all, 
if he have a good redar and enformer. For this 
booke is not for every rude and unconnynge 8 
man to see, but to clerkys and very 9 gentyl- 
men, that understande gentylnes and scyence. 
Thenne 1 praye all theym that shall rede in 
this lvtyl treatys to holde me for excused for 
the translatynge of hit, for I knowlcche my- 
selfe ignorant of conynge 10 to enpryse" on me 
so hie '-' and noble a werke. But I praye 
mayster John Skelton, late created poete 
laureate in the unvversite of Oxenford, to 
oversee and correcte this sayd booke and 
taddresse ia and expowne whereas 11 shalle he 
founde faulte to theym that shall requyre it, 
for hym I knowe for suffveyent to expowne and 
englysshe every dyffyeulte that is therin, for 
he hath late translated the Epystlys of Tulle 
and the boke of Dyodorus Syculus and diverse 



other werkes oute of Latyn in -to Englysshe, 
not in rude and olde langage, but in polysshed 
and ornate termes, craftely, 1 as he that hath 
redde Vyrgyle, Ovyde, Tullye, and all the other 
noble poctes and oratours to me unknowen; 
and also he hath redde the IX muses and 
understande thcyr musicalle scyences and to 
whom of theym eche scyence is appropred,- I 
suppose he hath dronken of Elycons well. 
Then I praye hym and suche other to correcte, 
adde or mynysshe, 3 where-as he or they shall 
fynde faulte, for I have but folowed my copye 
in Frenshe as nygh as me is possyble. And yf 
ony worde be sayd therin well, I am glad; and 
yf otherwyse, I submytte my sayde boke to 
thevr correctyon. Whiche boke I presente 
unto the hye born my tocomynge * naturell 
and soverayn lord Arthur, by the grace of God 
Prynce of Walys, Due of Cornewayll, and Erie 
of Chester, fyrst bygoten sone and hever 5 
unto our most dradde ,; naturall and soverayn 
lorde and most Crysten Kynge, Henry the VII, 
by the grace of God Kynge of Englonde and of 
Fraunce and lorde of Irelondc, byseching his 
noble grace to receyve it in thanke of me, his 
moste humble subget and servaunt; and I 
shall praye unto almyghty God for his pros- 
perous encreasyng in vertue, wysedom, and 
humanyte, that he may be egal 7 wyth the most 
renommed 8 of alle his noble progenytours, 
and so to lvve in this present lyf that after this 
transitorye lyfe he and we alle rrray come to 
everlastynge lyf in heaven. Amen! 



SIR JOHN BOURCHIER, LORD 
BERNERS (1467-1533) 

THE CRONYCLE OF SYR JOHN 
FRO I SS ART 

CAP. CCCLXXXm 

How the commons of Englande entred into Lon- 
don, and of the irrc.it yvell 8 that they dyde, and of 
the detheof the bysshoppe of Caunterbury and dy- 
vers other. 

In the mornyng on Corpus Christy day 
kynge Rycharde herde masse in the towre of 

London, and all his lordes, and than he toke 
his barge, with therle l0 of Salisbury, therle of 
Warwyke, the erle of Suffolke, and certayn 



1 eggs 2 lo 8 ornate, artificial * country 'deeds 

6 participate 7 easily B ignorant '•' true, real 10 ability 
11 take 1J high 13 to arrange "wherever 



1 skillfully - assigned 
6 heir 6 dread " equal 
111 the earl 



3 diminish 4 future 
8 renowned '■' i\ il 



THE CRONYCLE OF SYR JOHN FROISSART 



2 3 



knightes, and so rowed downe alonge Thames 
to Redcreth, 1 where as was discended downe 
the hyll a x.M. 2 men to se the kyng and to speke 
with him. And whan they sawe the kynges 
barge comyng, they beganne to showt, and 
made suche a crye, as though all the devylles 
of hell had ben amonge them. And they had 
brought with them sir Johan Moton, to the 
entent that if the kynge had nat come, they 
wolde have stryken hym all to peces, and so 
they had promysed hym. And whan the kynge 
and his lordes sawe the demeanour of the 
people, the best assured of them were in drede. 
And so the kynge was counsayled by his bar- 
ownes nat to take any landynge there, but so 
rowed up and downe the ryver. And the kyng 
demaunded of them what they wolde, and sayd, 
howe he was come thyder to speke with them ; 
and they said all with one voyce, "We wolde 
that ye shulde come a lande, and than we shall 
shewe y'ou what we lacke." Than the erle 
of Salisbury aunswered for the kyng and sayd, 
" Sirs, ye be nat in suche order nor array that 
the kynge ought to speke with you;" and so 
with those wordes, no more sayd. And than 
the kyng was counsayled to returne agayne to 
the towre of London, and so he dyde. And 
whan these people sawe that, they were en- 
flamed with yre, and retourned to the hyll where 
the great bande was, and ther shewed them 
what answere they had, and howe the kynge 
was retourned to the towre of London. Than 
they cryed all with one voyce, "Let us go to 
London;" and so they toke their way thyder. 
And in their goyng they beate downe abbeyes 
and houses of advocates, and of men of the 
courte, and so came into the subbarbes of 
London, whiche were great and fayre, and ther 
bete downe dyvers fayre houses. And specially 
they brake up the kynges prisones, as the 
Marshalse and other, and delyvered out all 
the prisoners that were within, and there they 
dyde moche hurt; and at the bridge fote they 
thret 3 them of London, bycause the gates of 
the bridge were closed, sayenge, howe they 
wolde brenne 4 all the subarbes, and so conquere 
London by force, and to slee 5 and brenne all 
the commons of the cytie. There were many 
within the cytie of their accorde, 6 and so they 
drewe toguyder, and sayde, "Why do we nat 
let these good people entre into the cyte? 
They are our felowes, and that that they do is 
for us." So therwith the gates were opyned, 



and than these people entred into the cytie, 
and went into houses, and satte downe to eate 
and drinke: they desyred nothynge but it was 
incontynent ' brought to them, for every manne 
was redy to make them good chere, and to 
gyve them meate and drinke to apease them. 
Than the capitayns, as John Ball, Jacke 
Strawe, and Watte Tyler wente throughout 
London, and a twentie thousande with them, 
and so came to the Savoy, in the way to West- 
mynster, whiche was a goodlye house, and it 
parteyned 2 to the duke of Lancastre. And 
whan they entred, they slewe the kepars therof, 
and robbed and pylled 3 the house, and whan 
they had so done, than they sette fyre on it, and 
clene distroyed and brent 4 it. And whan they 
had done that outrage, they left 5 nat therwith, 
but went streight to the fayre hospytalle of the 
Rodes, called saynt Johans, and there they 
brent house, hospytall, mynster and all. 
Than they went fro strete to strete, and slewe 
all the Flemmynges that they coulde fynde, 
in churche or in any other place ; ther was none 
respyted fro dethe. And they brake up dyvers 
houses of the Lombardes and robbed theym, 
and toke their goodes at their pleasur, for there 
was none that durst saye them nay. And they 
slewe in the cytie a riche marchaunt, called 
Richarde Lyon, to whome before that tyme 
Watte Tyler had done servyce in Fraunce; and 
on a tyme this Rycharde Lyon had beaten hym 
whyle he was his varlet; the whiche Watte 
Tyler than remembred, and so came to his 
house and strake of 6 his heed, and caused it 
to be borne on a spere poynt before him all 
about the cyte. Thus these ungracyous people 
demeaned themselfe, lyke people enraged and 
wode, 7 and so that day they dyde 8 moche 
sorowe in London. 

And so agaynst 9 night they wente to lodge at 
saynt Katherins, before the towre of London, 
sayenge howe they wolde never depart thens 
tyll they hadde the kynge at their pleasure, and 
tyll he had accorded to them all that they 
wolde aske, acomptes 10 of the chauncellour of 
Englande, to knowe where all the good was 
become that he had levyed through the realme; 
and without he made a good acompte to them 
therof, it shulde nat be for his profyte. And so 
whan they had done all these yvels to the 
straungers all the day, at night they lodged 
before the towre. 

Ye may well knowe and beleve that it was 



1 Rotherhithe 2 ten thousand 3 threatened * immediately 2 belonged 3 pillaged 4 burnt 

burn 6 slay 8 assent, way of thinking s ceased 6 off 7 crazy 8 caused 9 towards 10 accounts 



24 



SIR JOHN BOURCHIER, LORD BERNERS 



great pytie, for the daunger that the kyng and 
suche as were with him were in. For some 
tyme these unhappy people showted and cryed 
so loude, as thoughe all the devylles of hell 
had bene among them. In this evennynge the 
kynge was counsayled by his bretherne and 
lordes, and by sir Nycholas Walworthe, mayre 
of London, and dyvers other notable and riche 
burgesses, that in the night tyme they shulde 
issue out of the towre and entre into the cyte, 
and so to slee ' all these unhappy people whyle 
they were at their rest and aslepe; for it was 
thought that many of them were dronken, 
wherby they shulde be slayne lyke flees; 2 
also of twentie of them thcr was scant one in 
names. 3 And surely the good men of London 
might well have done this at their ease, for they 
had in their houses sccretely their frendes and 
servauntes redy in harnesse ; and also sir Robert 
Canolle was in his lodgyng, kepyng his treasure, 
with a sixscore redy at his commaundement ; 
in likewise was sir Perducas Dalbret, who was 
as than in London ; insomoche that ther myght 
well [be] assembled togyder an eyght thousande 
men, redy in harnesse. Ilowebeit, ther was 
nothyng done, for the resydue of the commons 
of the cytie were sore douted, 4 leest they shulde 
ryse also, and the commons before were a 
threscore thousande or mo. 6 Than 6 the erle of 
Salisbury and the wyse men about the kynge 
sayd, "Sir, if ye can apese 7 them with fayr- 
nesse, 8 it were best and moost profytable, and 
to graunt theym every thyngc that they desyre; 
for if we shulde begyn a thynge the whiche we 
coulde nat acheve, we shulde never recover it 
agayne, but we and oure heyres ever to be dis- 
heyrited." So this counsaile was taken, and the 
mayre countcrmaunded, and so commaunded 
that he shulde nat styrre; and he dyde as he 
was commaunded, as reason was. And in the 
cytie with the mayre there were xii. aldermen, 
wherof nyne of them helde with the kynge, and 
the other thre toke parte with these ungraycous 
people, as it was after well knowen, the whiche 
they full derely bought. 

And on the Friday in the mornynge, the 
people beyng at saynt Katheryns, nere to the 
towre, began to apparell themselfe, and to crye 
and shoute, and sayd, without the kyng wolde 
come out and speke with them, they wolde 
assayle the towre and take it by force, and 
slee ' all them that were within. Than the 



kyng douted * these wordes, and so was coun- 
sailcd that he shulde issue out to speke with 
them; and than 2 the knyge sende 3 to them, 
that they shulde all drawe to a fayre playne 
place, called Myle-ende, wher-as 4 the people 
of the cytie dyde sport them in the somer sea- 
son, and there the kyng to graunt them that 5 
they desyred. And there it was cryed in the 
kynges name, that whosoever wolde speke with 
the kyng, let hym go to the sayd place, and 
ther he shulde nat fayle to fynde the king. 
Than the people began to departe, specially 
the commons of the vyllages, and went to the 
same place, but all went nat thyder, for they 
were nat all of one condycion : e for ther were 
some that desyred nothynge but richesse and 
the utter distruction of the noble men, and to 
have London robbed and pylled. That was 
the princypall mater of their begynnynge, the 
whiche they well shewed; for assoone as the 
towre gate opyned, and that the kynge was 
yssued out with his two bretherne, and the erle 
of Salisbury, the erle of Warwike, the erle of 
Oxenforthe, sir Robert of Namure, the lorde 
of Bretaygne, the lorde Gomegynes, and 
dyvers other, than 2 Watte Tyler, Jacke Strawe, 
and Johan Ball, and more than foure hundred 
enlred into the towre, and brake up chambre 
after chambre, and at last founde the arche- 
bysshoppe of Caunterbury, called Symon, a 
valyant man and a wyse, and chefe chaun- 
celler of Englande; and a lyteli before he 
hadde sayde masse before the kynge. These 
glottons toke hym and strake of 7 his heed, 
and also they beheded the lorde of saynt Jo- 
hans, and a Frere Mynour, maister in medicyn 
parteyning 8 to the duke of Lancastre: they 
slewe hym in dispyte of his maister, and a 
sergeant at armes, called John Laige. And 
these four heedes were set on foure long 
speares, and they made them to be borne before 
them through the stretes of London, and at 
last set them a highe 9 on London bridge, as 
though they had ben traytours to the kyng and 
to the realme. Also these glottons entred into 
the princes 10 chambre and brake her bed, 
wherby she was so sore afrayed that she 
sowned, 11 and ther she was taken up and borne 
to the water syde, and put into a barge and 
covered, and so conveyed to a place called the 
qucnes Warderobe. And there she was all that 
daye and night, lyke a woman halfe deed, tyll 



1 slay 2 flics 8 harness, armor * frightened 'feared 2 then 3 sent 4 where 6 what 6 state of 

* more 8 then 7 appease, quiet 8 pleasant treat- mind 7 off 8 belonging ° on high 10 Princess 
ment Joan, the king's mother u swooned 



THE CRONYCLE OF SYR JOHN FROISSART 



25 



she was contorted with ' the kyng her sonnc, 
as ye shall here after. 

CAP. CCCLXXXIIII 

How the nobles of England were in great paryll 2 
to have ben dystroyed, and howe these rebels were 
punissbed and sende' home to thcyr uwnc houses. 

Whan the kyng came to the sayd place of 
Mylc-endc without London, he put out of his 
company his two bretherne, the erle of Kent 
and sir Johan Holande, and the lorde of 
Gomcgynes, for they durst nat apere before 
the people. And whan the kynge and- his 
other lordes were ther, he founde there a thre- 
score thousande men, of dyvers vyllages, and 
of sondrie counlreis ' in Englande. So the 
kynge entrcd in amonge them, and sayd to 
them swetely, "A! ye good people, I am your 
kyng; what lacke ye? what wyll ye say?" 
Than suche as understodc him sayd, "We wyll 
that ye make us free for ever, our selfe, our 
heyres, and our landes, and that we be called 
no more bonde, nor so reputed." "Sirs," 
sayd the king, "I am well agreed thcrto; with- 
drawn you home into your owne houses, and 
into suche villages as ye came fro, and leave 
behynde you of every vyllagc ii. or thre, and I 
shall cause writynges to be made, and seale 
theym with my seale, the whiche they shall 
have with them, conteyning every thynge that 
ye demaundc; and to thentent that ye shal 
be the better assured, I shall cause my bancrs 
to be delyvered into every bayliwyke, shyre, and 
countreis." These wordes apeased well the 
common people, suche as were symple and 
good playne men, that were come thyder and 
wyste 6 nat why: they sayd, "It was well said ; 
We desyre no belter." Thus these people 
beganne to be apeased, and began to withdrawe 
them into the cyte of London. And the kyng 
also said a worde, the whiche greatlye contented 
them. He sayde, "Sirs, amonge you good 
men of Kent, ye shall have one of my banners 
with you, and ye of Essexe another; and ye 
of Sussexe, of Bcdforde, of Cambridge, of 
Germeney, of Stafforde, and of Lyn, eche of 
you one; and also I pardon every thinge that 
ye have done hyderto, so that ye folowe my 
baners and retoumc home to your houses." 
They all answered how they woldc so do: thus 
these people departed and went into London. 
Than the kynge ordayned mo than xxx. 
clerkes the same Fridaye, to write with all 

1 by 2 danger 3 sent 4 districts 8 knew 



dilygence letters patentes, and sayled l with the 
kynges scale, and delyvered them to these 
people. And whan they had receyved the 
writynge, they departed and retoumed into 
their owne countreis; but the great venym 2 
remayned styll behynde. For Watte Tyler, 
Jacke Strawe, and John Ball sayd, fur all that 
these people were thus apesed, yet they wolde 
nat departe so, and they had of their acorde 3 
mo than xxx. thousande: so they abode styll, 
and made no prese 4 to have the kynges writyng 
nor seale; for all their ententes was to putte 
the cytie to trouble, in suche wyse as to slec 
all the riche and honest persons, and to robbe 
and pylle 5 their houses. They of London 
were in great fearc of this, wherfore they kepte 8 
their houses prcvily 7 with their frendes, and 
suche servauntes as they had, every man 
accordynge to his puyssaunce. And whane 
these sayde people were this Fridaye thus 
somewhat apeased, and that they shulde 
departe assoone as they hadde their writynges, 
everye manne home into his owne countrey, 
than kynge Rycharde came into the Royall, 
where the quene his mother was, right sore 
afrayed; so he conforted her as well as he 
coulde, and taryed there with her all that 
night. 

The Saturday the kynge departed fro the 
Warderobe in the Royall, and went to West- 
mynster and harde 8 masse in the churche there, 
and all his lordes with hym; and besyde the 
churche there was a lytic chapell, with an image 
of Our Lady, whiche dyd great myracles, and 
in whom the kynges of Englande had ever great 
truste and confydencc. The kynge made his 
orisons before this image, and dyde there his 
offryng; and than he lepte on his horse and 
all his lordes, and so the kynge rode towarde 
London; and whan he had ryden a lytic way 
on the lyft hande, there was a way to passe 
without London. 

The same propre mornynge Watte Tyler, 
Jacke Strawe, and John Ball had assembled their 
company to comon 9 together, in a place called 
Smythfelde, where-as 10 every Fryday there is a 
markette of horses. And there were together 
all of afhnite mo than xx. thousande, and yet 
there were many styll in the towne, drynkynge 
and makyngc mery in the tavernes, and payed 
nothyng, for they were happy that made them 

1 sealed 2 poison 3 assent, way of thinking 
* press, urgent effort * pillage ° defended 7 privately 
8 heard ° commune 10 where 



26 



SIR JOHN BOURCHIER, LORD BERNERS 



beste chere. And these people in Smythfelde 
had with theym the kynges baners, the whiche 
were delyvered theym the daye before. And all 
these glottons were in mynde to overrenne ' and 
to robbe London the same daye, for theyr 
capitaynes sayde bowe they had done nothynge 
as yet; "These lyberties that the kynge hath 
gyven us, is to us but a small profitte ; therfore 
lette us be all of one accorde, and lette us over- 
renne this riche and puyssaunt citie or 2 they 
of Essex, of Sussex, of Cambrydge, of Bed- 
forde, of Arundell, of Warwyke, of Reedynge, 
of Oxen fon le, of Guylforde, of Linne, of 
Stafforde, of Germeney, of Lyncolne, of Yorke, 
and of Duram, do come hyther; for all these 
wyll come hyther, Wallyor and Lyster wyll 
bringe them hyther; ami if we be fyrst lordes 
of London, and have the possession of the 
ryches that is thcrin, we shall nat repent us; 
for if we leave it, they that come after wyll 
have it fro us." To thys counsayle they all 
agreed: and therwith the kynge came the same 
waye unware of theym, for he had thought to 
have passed that wave withoute London, and 
with hym a xl. horse; and whan he came 
before the abbaye of saynt Bartilmeus, and 
bchclde all these people, than 3 the kynge rested 
and sayde, howe he wolde go no farther, tyll 
he knewe what these people ayled, sayenge, if 
they were in any trouble, howe he wold re- 
pease ' them agayne. The lordes that were 
with hym taried also, as reason was whan they 
sawe the kynge tarye. And whan Watte 
Tyler sawe the kynge tary, he sayd to his 
people," Syrs, yonder is the kynge, I wyll go and 
speke with hym; styrre nat fro hens without I 
make you a signe, and whan I make you that 
sygne, come on, and slee all theym, excepte 
the kynge. But do the kynge no hurte; he is 
yonge, we shall do with hym as we lyst, and 
shall leade hym with us all about Englande, 
and so shall we be lordes of all the royalme 5 
without doubt." And there was a dowblette 
maker of London, called John Tycle, and he 
hadde brought to these glotons a lx. doublettes, 
the whiche they ware; 8 than he demaunded of 
these capitaynes who shulde pave hym for his 
doublettes; he demaunded xxx. marke. Watte 
Tyler answered hym and sayd, "Frende, ap- 
pease yourselfe, thou shalte be well paved or 
this day lie ended; kepe the nere me, 1 shall 
be thy credytour." 7 And therwith he spurred 
his horse and departed fro his company, and 



came to the kynge, so nere hym that his horse 
heed touched the crope ! of the kynges horse. 
And the first worde that he sayd was this: 
"Syr kynge, seest thou all yonder people?" 
"Ye, truly," sayd the kynge: "wherfore sayest 
thou?" "Bycause," sayd he, "they be all at 
my commaundement, and have sworne to me 
fayth and trouth to do all that I wyll have 
theym." "In a good tyme," sayd the kyng, "I 
wyll well it be so." Than Watte Tyler sayde, 
as he that nothynge demaunded but ryot, 
"What belevest thou, kynge, that these people, 
and as many mo as be in London at my com- 
maundement, that they wyll departe frome the 
thus, without havynge thy letters?" "No," 
sayde the kyng, "ye shall have theym, they be 
ordeyned for you, and shal be delyvered every 
one eche after other; wherfore, good felowes, 
withdrawe fayre and easely to your people, and 
cause them to departe out of London, for it is 
our entent that eche of you by villages and 
towneshippes shall have letters patentes, as I 
have promysed you." With those wordes 
Watte Tyler caste his eyen 2 on a squyer that 
was there with the kynge, bearynge the kynges 
swerde; and Wat Tyler hated greatlye the 
same squver, for the same squier had displeased 
hym before for wordes bytwene theym. 
"What," sayde Tyler, "arte thou there? 
gyve me thy dagger!" "Nay," sayde the 
squier, "that wyll I nat do; wherfore shulde 
I gyve it thee?" The kynge behelde the 
squyer, and sayd, "Gyve it hym, lette hym 
have it." And so the squyer toke 3 it hym 
sore agaynst his wyll. And whan this Watte 
Tyler had it, he began to play therwith, and 
tourned it in his hande, and sayde agayne 
to the squyer, "Gyve me also that swerde." 
" Naye," sayde the squyer, "it is the kynges 
swerde; thou arte nat worthy to have it, for 
thou arte but a knave; and if there were no 
moo here but thou and I, thou durste nat speke 
those wordes for as moche golde in quantite 
as all yonder abbaye." "By my favthe," sayd 
Wat Tyler, "I shall never eate meate tyll I have 
thy heed." And with those wordes the mayre 
of London came to the kynge with a xii. horses, 
well armed under theyr cootes, 4 and so he brake 
the prease, 6 and sawe and harde 8 howe Watte 
Tyler demeaned 7 hymselfe, anil sayde to hym, 
" 1 la ! thou knave, howe arte thou so hardy in 
the kynges presence to speke suche wordes? 
It is to moche for the so to do." Than the 



■se 
;e. 



1 overrun ■ before • then ' quiet '"' kingdom "wore 
7 This seems to be a mistake for debtor. 



1 croup, rump ■ eyes :! delivered 4 coats 
throng 6 heard 7 conducted 



1 press, 



THE CRONYCLE OF SYR JOHN FROISSART 



27 



kyngc began to chafe, and sayd to the mayre, 
"Sette handes on hvm." And while the kynge 
sayde so, Tyler sayd to the mayre, "A Goddes 
name, 1 what have I sayde to displease the?" 
"Yes, truely," quod the mayre, "thou false 
stynkyngc knave, shalt thou spckc thus in the 
presence of the kynge my naturall lorde? I 
commytte 2 never to lyve without thou shalte 
derely abye it." And with those wordes the 
mayre drewe oute his swerdc and strake Tyler 
so great a stroke on the heed, that he fell downe 
at the feete of his horse; and as soone as he 
was fallen, they environed hym all aboute, 
whcrby he was nat sene of his company. Than 
a squyer of the kynges alyghted, called John 
Standysshe, and he drewe out his sworde and 
put it into Watte Tylers belye, and so he dyed. 
Than the ungracious people there assembled, 
perceyvynge theyr capytayne slayne, beganne 
to mourmure amonge themselfe and sayde, 
"A! our capitayne is slayne; lette us go and 
slee them all!" And therwith they araynged 
themselfe on the place in maner of batayle, 
and theyr bowes before theym. Thus the 
kynge beganne a great outrage ; 3 howebeit, 
all turned to the beste, for as soone as Tyler 
was on the erthe, the kynge departed from all 
his company, and all alone he rode to these 
people, and sayde to his owne men, "Syrs, 
none of you folowe me, let me alone." And 
so whan he came before these ungracious people, 
who put themselfe in ordinaunce 4 to revenge 
theyr capitayne, than the kynge sayde to theym, 
"Syrs, what ayleth you, ye shall have no 
capitayne but me: I am your kynge, be all in 
rest and peace." And so the moost parte of 
the people that harde 6 the kynge speke, and 
sawe hym amonge them, were shamefast, 6 
and beganne to waxe peasable, and to 
departe; but some, suche as were mali- 
cious and evyll, wolde nat departe, but 
made semblant as though they wolde do 
somwhat. Than the kynge returned to his 
owne company and demaunded of theym 
what was best to be done. Than he was 
counsailed to drawe into the fekl, for to flye 
awaye was no boote. 7 Than sayd the mayre, 
" It is good that we do so, for I thynke surely 
we shall have shortely some comforte of them 
of London, and of suche good men as be of 
our parte, who are pourveyed, 8 and have theyr 
frendes and men redy armed in theyr houses." 
And in this meane tyme voyce and bruyte 9 



ranne through London, howe these unhappy 
people were lykely to sle ' the kynge and the 
maire in Smythfelde; through the whiche 
noyse, all maner of good men of the kynges 
partye issued out of theyr houses and lodgynges, 
well armed, and so came all to Smythfelde, and 
to the felde where the kynge was; and they 
were anone 2 to the nombre of vii. or viii. 
thousande men well armed. And fyrste thyther 
came sir Robert Canoll, and sir Perducas 
Dalbret, well accompanyed, and dyvers of the 
aldermen of London, and with theym a vi. 
hundred men in harneys; and a pusant man 
of the citie, who was the kynges draper, called 
Nicholas Membre, and he brought with hym 
a great company. And ever as they came, they 
raynged them afoote in ordre of bataylle; and 
on the other parte these unhappy people were 
redy raynged, makynge semblaunce to gyve 
batayle; and they had with theym dyvers of 
the kynges baners. There the kynge made iii. 
knyghtes; the one the mayre of London sir 
Nycholas Walworthe, syr Johan Standysshe, 
and syr Nycholas Braule. Than the lordes 
sayde amonge theymselfe, "What shall we do? 
We se here our ennemyes, who wolde gladly 
slee us, if they myght have the better hande of 
us." Sir Robert Canoll counsayled to go and 
fight with them, and slee them all; yet the 
kyng wolde nat consent therto, but sayd, "Nay, 
I wyll nat so; I wyll sende to theym, com- 
maundynge them to sende me agayne my 
baners, and therby we shall se what they wyll 
do: howbeit, outlier 3 by fayrnesse 4 or other- 
wise, I wyll have them." "That is well sayd, 
sir," quod therle of Salysbury. Than these 
newe knightes were sent to them, and these 
knightes made token to them nat to shote at 
them; and whan they came so nere them that 
their speche might be herde, they sayd, "Sirs, 
the kyng commaundeth you to sende to him 
agayne his baners, and we thynke he wyll have 
mercy of you." And incontinent they delyv- 
ered agayne the baners, and sent them to the 
kyng: also they were commaunded, on payne 
of their heedes, that all suche as had letters 
of the king to bring them forthe, and to sende 
them agayne to the kynge. And so many of 
them delyvered their letters, but nat all. Than 
the kyng made them to be all to-torne 5 in their 
presence: and as soone as the kynges baners 
were delyvered agayne, these unhappy people 
kept none array, but the moost parte of them 



1 in God's name - pledge 3 disturbance 4 array 
6 heard 6 ashamed 7 remedy 8 provided 9 rumor 



1 slay 2 immediately 
8 torn to pieces 



3 either 4 pleasant means 



28 



SIR JOHN BOURCHIER, LORD BERNERS 



dyde caste downe their bowes, and so brake 
their array, and retourned into London. Sir 
Robert Canoll was sore dyspleased in that he 
myght nat go to slee them all; but the kyng 
wolde nat consent therto, but sayd he wolde 
be revenged of them well ynough, and so he 
was after. 

Thus these folysshe people departed, some 
one way and some another; and the kyng and 
his lordes and all his company ryght ordynately 
cntred into London with great jove. And the 
firste journey that the kynge made, he wente 
to the lady princesse his mother, who was in a 
castell in the Rovall, called the queues ward- 
robe; and there she hadde tarved two dayes 
and two nightes right sore ahasshed, as she 
had good reasone. And whan she sawe the 
kyng her sonne she was greatly rejoysed, and 
sayde, "A! fayre sonne, what payne and great 
SOIOwe that I have suffred for you this day!" 
Than the kvnge answered and sayd, "(Yrtavnly, 
madame, I knowe it well ; but aowe rejoyse your- 
selfe and thanke God, for nowe it is tyme. I have 
this day recovered myne herytage and the 
realme of Englande, the whiche I hadde nere 
lost." Thus the kvng tarved that day with his 
mother, and every lorde went peaseably to their 



owne lodgynges. Than there was a crye made 
in every strete in the kynges name, that all 
maner of men, nat beyng of the cytie of Lon- 
don, and have nat dwelt there the space of one 
yere, to departe; and if any suche be founde 
there the Sonday by the sonne risyng, that 
they shuld be taken as traytours to the kyng, 
and to lose their heedes. This crye thus made, 
there was none that durste breke it ; and so 
all maner of people departed, and sparcled ' 
abrode every man to their owne places. Johan 
Balle and Jaques Strawe were founde in an olde 
house hydden, thinkyng to have stollen away, 
but they coulde nat, for they were accused by 
their owne men. Of the takvng of them the 
kyng and his lordes were gladde, and thanne 
strake of their heedes, and Watte Tylers also, 
and they were set on London bridge; and the 
valyaunt mennes heedes taken downe that they 
had sette on the Thursday before. These 
tidynges anone spredde abrode, so that the 
people of the strange eountreis,- whiche were 
comyng towardes London, retourned backe 
agayne to their owne houses, and durst come 
no farther. 

1 scattered 2 distant districts 



THE TRANSITION TO MODERN TIMES 



SIR THOMAS MORE (1478-1535) 

A DIALOGUE OF SYR THOMAS MORE, 

kWT.llTE 

THE THIRDE BOKE. THE 16. CHAPITER 

The messenger rehearseth some causes which he 
hath herd laid ' by sunn- of the clergie: wherfore the 
Scripture should not be suffred in Englishe. And 
the author sheweth his mind, that it wer convenient 
to haw the Byble in Englishe. 

"Syr," quod your frende, "yel for a I this, 
can 1 sec do cause why the cleargie shoulde kepe 
the Byble out of ley tnennes handes, thai can '-' 
do more bul theyr mother tong." "I had 
wont," ■'' quod I, "that I had proved you playnely 
that they kepe it Dot from them. For I haw 
shewed you that they kepe none from them, 
but such translation as be cither Dot yet ap- 
proved for good, or such as be alredi reproved 
for naught, as WikliffeS was and Tindals. 
For as for oilier olde ones, 1 that wer before 
Wickliffes daies, remain lawful, and be in 
some folkes handes had and read." "Ye 
saye well," quod he. "But yet as weomen saye, 
'somewhat it was alway that the cat winked 
whan her eye was oule.' Surelye so is it not 
for nought that the English Byble is in so few 
mens handes, whan so many woulde so fayne 

have it. That is very trouth," quod I; 

"for I thinke that though the favourers of a 
secte of heretikes be so fervent in the setting 
furth of their secte, that they let ' not to lay 
their money together and make a purse among 
them, for the printvng of an cvill made, or evil 
translated booke: which though it happe to 
be forboden " and burned, yet some be sold 
ere they be spved, and eche of them lese 7 but 
theyr part : yet I thinke ther will no printer 
lightly s be so hote 9 to put anye Byble in prynte 
at hys own charge, whereof the losse shoulde 
lye hole in his owne necke, and than "' hang 

1 alleged -' know :i weened, thought * This word 
is the subject of remain, as well as a pari of the phrase 
in which it stands; the construction is curious but 
common. '' hesitate 8 forbidden 7 lose s easily ° hot, 
ready "' then 



upon a doutful tryal, whether the first copy of 
hys translation, was made before Wickliffes 
dayes or since. For if it were made synce, it 
must be approved before the prynting. 

"And surelye howe it hathe happed that in 
all this whyle God hath cylhcr not suffered, or 
not provided that any good verteous man hath 
hadde the mynde in faithful wise to translate 
it, and therupon ether the clergie or, at the 
least wise, sonic one bishop to approve it, thys 
can 1 nothing tell. But howesoever it be, I 
have heardeand heare so muche spoken in the 
matter, and so muche doute made thcrin, that 
peradventure it would let and withdrawe any 
one bishop from the admitting therof, without 
the assent of the remenant. And whereas 
many thinges be laid against it: yet is ther in 
my mind not one thynge that more putteth 
good men of the clergie in doubte to suffer it, 
than thys: that they see sometime much of the 
worse sort more fervent in the calling for it, 
than them whom we find farre better. Which 
maketh them to feare lest such men desyre it 
for no good, and lest if it wer hadde in every 
mannes hand, there would great peril arise, 
and that seditious people should doc more 
harmc therwith than good and honest folke 
should take fruite thereby. Whiche feare I 
promise you nothyng feareth me, but that 
whosoever woulde of theyr malice or folye take 
harmc of that thing that is of it selfe ordeyned 
to doe al men good, I would never for the 
avoyding of their harme, take from other the 
profit, which they might take, and nothing 
deserve to lese. 1 Forellcs'-' if the abuse of a 
good thing should cause the taking away therof 
from other that would use it well, Christ should 
hymself never have been borne, nor brought 
hys favth into the world, nor God should never 
have made it mat her, if he should, for the losse 
of those, that would lie damned wretches, have 
kept away the occasion of reward from them 
that would with helpe of his grace endevor 
them to deserve it." 

"I am sure," quod your frend, "ye doubte 
not bul that I am full and hole of youre mynde 



lose 



2 else 



29 



3° 



SIR THOMAS MORE 



in this matter, thai the Byble shoulde be in 
oure Englishe tong, Bui ye1 thai the clergie 
is of the contrary, and would no1 have it so, 
ihat appearetfa well, in thai they suffer ii nol 
to be so. And over 1 that, I heare in everye 
place almost where 1 find any learned man of 
them, their mindes all sel theron to ke|x- the 
Scripture from us. And they seke out for that 
parte every rotten reason that they can find, 
and sel them furth solemnely to the shew, 

though fyve of those reasons bee not WOOrth a 
figge. For they begynne as farre as our first 

father Adam, and shew US that his wyfc and he 
fell out of paradise with desyre of knowledge 

and cunning. Nowe if thys woulde serve, it 

must from the knowledge and sludie of Scrip 
lure dryve every man, priest and other, lest it 
drive all out of paradise. Than save they that 
Cod taught his diseiples many ihynges apart, 
because the people should not heare it. \nd 
then-fore they woulde the people should not 

now In- suffered to reade all. Yet they say 
further that it is hard to translate the Scripture 
out of one long into an other, and specially they 

Say into ours, which they call a long vulgare 

and barbarous. Hut of all thing specially they 
say that Scripture is the foode of the soule. 

And that the eomen people he as infantes that 

must he fedde hut with milke and pappe. And 
if we have anye stronger meate, it must he 
chammed ' afore by the nurse, and so pulte 
into the babes mouthe. Hut me think though 
they make us al infantes, they shall fynde many 

a shrewde brayn among us, that can perceive 

chalke fro chese well ynough, and if they woulde 
Once take :1 us our meate in our own hand, we 
be nol so evil todied ' hut that within a while 
they shall see US Cham it our self as well as they. 
For let them eall us vong babes and ' they wil, 

yet, bv God, they shal for al thai well fynde in 

Some of us that an olde knave is no divide." 

"Surely," quod 1, "suche thinges as ye 

Speake, is the thyng that, as 1 somewhat savd 
before, putteth good folke in featv to suffer 

the Scripture in our Englishe tong. Not for 

the reading and receiving: but for the busy 

chamming' therof, and for much medling with 

SUCh partes thereof, as least will agree with 
their eapaeities. For undoutedlve as ve spake 
of our mother I've: inordinate appetite of 
knowledge is a meane to drive any man out of 
paradise. And inordinate is the appetite, 
whan men unlerned, though thev reade it in 



1 besides ' masticated ' deliver • ill toothed 
* if B chewing 






theyr language, will be busv to enserehe and 

dyspute the great secret mysteries of Scripture, 
whiche thoughe they heare, they be not hable 1 
to perceve. 

"Tins thing is playnely forbode 1 us that be 

not appoynted nor instructed therto. And 
therfore hob' saint Gregory Naziazenus, that 

great solenme doCtOUT, sore loueheth and re 
proveth al sueh bolde, busv medlers in the 

Scripture, ami sheweth that it is in Exodie by 

Mo\ses ascending up upon the hill where he 

Spake with Clod, and the people tarving be- 
neath, signified that the people bee forhoden ' 

to presume to medle with the hygh mysteries 
of Holy Scripture, but ought to be contente to 

tarv beneath, and medle none higher than is 

meete for them, but, receivyng fro the height 
of the hill by Moyses that that is delivered them, 

that is to witte, the lawes ami prcccptcs that 
they must kepe, ami the poyntes they must 
beleve, loke well therupon, and often, and 
medle wel therwith: not to dispute it, but to 
fulfille it. And as for the high seerete mys- 
teries of God, and hard textes of hys I lobe 
Scripture: let us knowe that we be so unable 
to ascende up so high on that hill, that it shall 

become us to save to the preachers appoynted 
therto as the people sayd unto Moises: 'Heare 

you ('>od, and let us heare you.' And surely 
the blessed holy doctour saynl Hierpme 
greatelye complayneth and rebuketh that 

lewde homely manor, that the 'CDiiimiin lev 
peple, men and weomen, wer in his daies so 
bold in the medling, disputing, and expowning 
of Hob' Scripture. And sheweth playnlve that 
they shall have evill prefe ' therein, that will 
reken themself to understand it bv them selfe 

without a reader. For it is a thing that re- 

quireth good help, and long time, and an whole 
mynde geven greatelye thereto. And su reive, 
syth,' as the holve Apostle Saynl Pottle in 
divers of hvs epistles savlh, God hath by his 
llolv Spirite so institute and ordeyned his 
churche, that he will have some readers, and 
some hearers, some teachers, and some learn- 
ers, we do plainly pervert and tourne up so 
down the right order of Christes ehureh, whan 
the one pari medleth with the others office. 

"Plato the great phylosopher specially for- 
biddeth SUChe as be not admitted therunto, nor 
men mete therefore, to medle much and em- 
busie themself in reasoning and dysputyng 
upon the temporal] lawes of the eitie, which 
would not be reasoned upon but by folke mete 

1 able 'forbidden 'experience 'since 



A DIALOGUE OF SYR THOMAS MORE, KNYGHTE 



3 1 



thcrfore and in place convenient. For dies 
they that cannot very wel attain to perceive 
them, begin to mislikc, disprayse, and con- 
temne them. Whereof so foloweth the breche 
of the lawes, and dysorder of the people. For 
ivll a [awe bee chaunged by authoritie, it rather 
ought to be observed than contemned. Or 

elles the exaumple of one lawe boldly broken 
and setle at naughte, waxcth a prccidenl for 
the remenaunte to be used lyke. And com- 
mon lye, the best lawes shall woorste lyke ' 
muche of the common people, which moste 
longc (if they myght be heard and folowed) 
to live al at liberlie under none at all. Nowe 
if Plato, so wyse a man, so thought good in 
temporal] lawes, thynges of mennes makyng, 
howe muche is it lesse meete for everye manne 
boldelye to meddle with the exposicion of 
Ilolye Scry])turc, so devysed and endyted by 
the hyghe wisedome of God, that it farre ex- 
cedeth in many places the capacitie and per- 
ceiving of man. It was also provided by the 
Emperour in the law civile, that the common 
people shoulde never be so bolde to kepe 
dispicions 2 upon the fayth or Holy Scripture, 
nor that anye such thing shoulde be used among 
them or before them. And therefore, as I said 
before, the special feare in this matter is, lest 
\\r would be to busy in chammyng 3 of the 
Scripture our self, whichc ye saye we were 
liable' ynoughe to dooe. Whiche undoubt- 
ed! \v, the wysest, and the best learned, and he 
that therein hathe by manye ycres bestowed 
hys whole minde, is yet unable to dooe. And 
than '' farre more unliable muste he nedes be, 
that boldly will upon the fyrst reading, because 
he knoweth the wordes, take upon him ther- 
fore to teche other men the sentence ° with 
peril of his own soule and other mennes too, 
by the bringyng men into mad wayes, sectes, 
ami heresies, suche as heretikes have of olde 
brought up and the church hath condemned. 
And thus in these matters if the commen peple 
might be bold to cham it as ye say, and to dis- 
pute it, than 5 should ye have, the more blind 
the more bold: the more ignoraunl the more 
busie: the lesse witte the more inquisitife: 
the more foole the more talkatife of great doutes 
and hygh questions of Holy Scripture and of 
Goddes great and secret misteries, and this 
not sobrely of any good affection, but pre- 
sumpleouslye and unrevercntlye at meate and 
at meale. And there, whan the wyne wer 



in and the witte out, woulde they take upon 
them with foolish wordes and blasphemie to 
handle Holie Scripture in more homely maner 
than a song of Robin Mode. And some would, 
as 1 said, solemnely take upon them like as 
thei wer ordinary readers to interprete the 
text at lluir plesure, and therwith fall themself 
and draw doun other with them into sedicious 
sectes and heresies, whereby the Scripture of God 
should lese' his honour and reverence, and be by 
such unreverente and unsytting 2 demeanour, 
among muche people, quite and cleane abused, :| 
unto the contrary of that holye purpose that God 
ordayned it for. Where as, if we woulde no 
further meddle therewith, but well and de- 
voutelye reade it: and in that that is playne 
and evident as Gods commaundcmcnles ami 
his holy counsayls endevour our self to folow 
with helpe of his grace asked therunto, arrfl in 
his greate and merveilous miracles consider his 
God-head: and in his lowly birth, his godly 
life, and his bitter passion, exercise our selfe 
in suche meditacions, prayer, and vertues, as 
the matter shall minister us occasion, know 
Ledgeing 4 our owne ignoraunce where we fynd 
a dout, and therin leaning to the faythe of the 
churche, wrestle with no such text as might 
bring us in a double and werestye 5 of anye of 
those articles wherein every good christen man 
is clere: by thys maner of reading can no man 
nor woman take hurt in Holy Scripture. 

"Nowe than, the thinges on the other syde 
that unlearned people can never by themself 
attayne, as in the Psalmes and the Prophetes 
and divers partes of the Gospel!, where the 
wordes bee some time spoken as in the parsone " 
of the Prophete himselfe, sometyme as in the 
parsone of God, sometime of some other, as 
angels, devils, or men, and sometime of our 
Savior Christ, not alway of one fashion, but 
sometime as God, sometime as man, somtime 
as head of this mistical body his church mili- 
tant here in earth, sometime as head of his 
churche triumphant in heaven, somtime as in 
the persone of his sensuall parties of his own 
body, otherwhile in the person of some par- 
ticular part of his body mystical, and these 
thinges with many other oftentimes inter 
changed and sodeinly sundrye thinges of divers 
matters diverslye mingled together, al these 
thinges which is not possible for unlearned nun 
to attayn unto, it wer more than madnes for 
them to medle withal, but leave al these thinges 



1 please 

11 meaning 



disputes 3 chewing 



then 



1 lose 2 unbecoming 3 misused * acknowledging 
6 uncertainty 8 person 



32 



SIR THOMAS MORE 



to them whose hole study is beset ' therupon, 
and to the preachers appointed therunto, 
whiche may shew them such t hinges in time 
and place convenient with reverence and au- 
thoritie, the sermon so tempered, as may bee 
mete and convenient alwaye for the present 
audience. Wherunto it appereth that oure 
Saviour himself, and his apostles after him, 
had ever speciall respect: and therfore, as I 
say forsoth, I can in no wise agree with you 
that it wer mete for men unlearned to be busy 
with the chamming of Holy Scripture, but to 
have it chammed unto them. For that is the 
preachers part and theirs that after longe 
studve arc admytted to reade and expown it. 
And to this entent waye 2 al the wordes, as farre 
as I perceve, of al holy doctours that any thing 
have writen in this matter. 

"But never merit they, as I suppose, the 
forbydding of the Byble to be readde in any 
vulgare tong. Nor I never yet heard any 
reason layd, why it were not convenient to 
have the Byble translated into the Englishe 
tong, but al those reasons, semed they never 
so gay and glorious at the first sight : yet, when 
they were well examined, they myght in effect, 
for ought that I can see, as wel be layde against 
the holy writers that wrote the Scripture in the 
Hebrue tongue, and against the blessed evan- 
gelistes that wrote the Scripture in Greke, and 
against all those in likewise that translated it 
oute of every of those tonges into Latine, as to 
their charge that would well and faithfully 
translate it oute of Latine into our Englishe 
tong. For as for that our tong is called bar- 
barous, is but a fantasye. For so is, as every 
lerned man knoweth, every stfaunge language 
to other. And if they would call it barayn of 
wordes, there is no doubte but it is plenteous 
enough to expresse our myndes in anve thing 
wherof one man hath used to speke with another. 
Nowe as touchynge the difficultie which a 
translatour fyndeth in expressing well and 
lively the sentence of his author, whiche is 
hard alwaye to doe so surely but that he shall 
sometime minyshe 3 eyther of the sentence 1 
or of the grace that it bereth in the formal 
tong: that poynt hath lyen 5 in their lyght that 
have translated the Scrypture alreadye eyther 
out of Greke into Latine, or out of Hebrue 
into any of them both, as, by many translacions 
which we rede already, to them that be learned 
appereth. 



"Now as touching the harme that may 
growe by suche blynde bayardes as will, whan 
they reade the Byble in Englishe, be more 
busy than will become them : They that touche 
that poynt harpe upon the right string, and 
touche truely the great harme that wer likely 
to growe to some folke : howe be it not by the 
occasion yet of the English translacion, but 
by the occasion of thevr own lewdnes and foly, 
whiche yet were not in my mynde a sufficiente 
cause to exclude the translacion, and to put 
other folke from the benefite therof : but rather 
to make provision agaynste such abuse, and let 
a good thing goe furth. No wise marine wer 
there that woulde put al weapons away be- 
cause manquellers ' misuse them. 

"Nor this letted 2 not, as I sayd, the Scrip- 
ture to be first writen in a vulgare tong. For 
Scripture, as I said before, was not writen but 
in a vulgare tonge, suche as the whole people 
understode, nor in no secrete cyphers but such 
common letters as almost every man could rede. 
For neither was the Hebrue nor the Greke tong, 
nor the Latcn, neither any other speche than 
such as all the peple spake. And therfore if 
we shold lay 3 that it wer evil done to translate 
the Scripture into our tong, because it is vul- 
gare and comen to every Englishe man, than 4 
had it been as cvill done to translate it into 
Greke or into Latin, or to wryte the New 
Testament first in Greke, or the Old Testa- 
ment in Hebrew, because both those tonges 
wer as verye vulgare as ours. And yet should 
there by this reason also, not onely the Scripture 
be kepte out of oure tong, but, over 5 that, 
shoulde the reading therof be forboden, both 
al such ley people and all suche priestes too, as 
can no more than thcyr grammer, and verye 
scantly that. All which companye though 
they can understande the wordes, be yet as 
farre from the perceiving of the sentence in 
harde and doubtefull textes, as were our 
wcomen if the Scripture were translated to oure 
own language. How be it, of trouth, seldome 
hath it been seen that any secte of heretikes 
hath begonne of suche unlearned folke as 
nothynge coulde 6 elles 7 but the language 
wherein they read the Scripture: but there 
bathe alway comonly these sectes sprongen of 
the pryde of such folke as had, with the know- 
ledge of that tong, some high persuasion in 
themselfe of their owne lerning beside. To 
whose authoritie some other folke have soone 



1 applied 2 weigh, tend 
•lain 



1 diminish * meaning ■ murderers 2 hindered 

8 besides 6 knew 7 else 



3 declare 4 then 



A DIALOGUE OF SYR THOMAS MORE, KNYGHTE 



33 



after, parte of malice, parte of symplenesse, 
and muche parte of pleasure and delighte in 
new fanglenesse fallen in, and encreased the 
faecion. But the head hath ever comonly been 
eyther some prowde learned man, or, at the 
least, beside the language, some proude smat- 
erer in learning. So that, if we should, for 
feare of heretikes that might hap to growe 
thereby, kepe the Scripture out of any tong, or 
out of unlerned mens handes, we should for 
like feare be fayne to kepe it out of al tonges, 
and out of lerned mens handes to, 1 and wot 
not whom we mighte trust therwith. Wher- 
fore ther is, as me thinketh, no remedie but, 
if any good thing shall goe foreward, some- 
what must nedes be adventured. And some 
folke will not fayle to be naughte. Agaynst 
which thinges provision must bee made, that 
as muche good maye growe, and as litle harme 
come as canne bee devysed, and not to kepe 
the whole commoditie 2 from any hole people, 
because of harme that by their owne foly and 
faulte may come to some part, as thoughe a 
lewde 3 surgion woulde cutte of 4 the legge by 
the knee to kepe the toe from the goute, or cut 
of a mans head by the shoulders to kepe him 
from the toothe ache. 

"There is no treatice of Scripture so hard 
but that a good vertuous man or woman eyther 
shal somewhat find therin that shall delyte and 
encreace their devocion, besydes this that 
everye preachinge shall be the more pleasant 
and fruitfull unto them, whan they have in 
their mind the place of Scrypture that they shall 
there heare expowned. For though it bee, as 
it is in dede, great wisedome for a preacher to 
use discrecion in hys preachyng and to have a 
respecte unto the qualities and capacities of 
his audience, yet letteth 5 that nothinge, but 
that the whole audience maye without harme 
have read and have readye the Scrypture in 
mynde, that he shall in hys preachyng declare 
and expowne. For no doute is there, but that 
God and his Holye Spirite hath so prudentlye 
tempered theyr spechc thorowe the whole corps 
of Scripture that every man may take good 
therby, and no man harme but he that wil in 
the study therof leane proudly to the foly of 
hys own wit. 

" For albeit that Chryst did speake to the 
people in parables, and expowned them 
secretly to hys especiall disciples, and some- 
time forbare to tell some thynges to them 
also, because they were not as yet hable to 

1 too 2 benefit 3 ignorant * off 8 hinders 



beare them: and the apostles in lykewyse 
didde sometyme spare to speake to some 
people the thinges that they dydde not let l 
playnly to speake to some other, yet letteth 2 
all thys nothing the translacion of the Scrip- 
ture into our own tong no more than in the 
Latine. Nor it is no cause to kepe the corps 3 
of Scripture out of the handes of anye Christen 
people so many yeres fastly confyrmed in fayth, 
because Christ and hys apostles used suche 
provision in their utterance of so strange and 
unherd misteries, either unto Jewes, Paynims, 4 
or newly christened folk, except we would say 
that all the exposicions which Chryst made 
himself upon hys owne parables unto hys 
secret servauntes and disciples withdrawen 
from the people, shoulde nowe at thys day be 
kept in lykewyse from the comons, and no 
man suffred to reade or heare them, but those 
that in hys churche represent the state and office 
of hys apostles, whiche ther will, I wote well, 
no wyse manne say, consideryng that those 
thinges which were than comonly most kept 
from the people, be now most necessary for the 
people to knowe. As it well appeareth by al 
such things in effect as our Saviour at that 
tyme taught his apostles a part. Wherof I 
would not, for my mynde, witholde the profite 
that one good devoute unlerned ley man might 
take by the reading, not for the harme that an 
hundred heretikes would fall in by theyr own 
wilful abusion, no more than oure Saviour 
letted, 5 for the weale of suche as woulde bee 
with hys grace of hys little chosen flock, to 
come into thys world and be lapis qffcnsionis 
et petra scandali, the stone of stumbling and 
the stone of falling and ruine, to all the wilful 
wretches in the world beside. 

" Finally me thynketh that the constitucion 
provincial of whiche we spake right now, hath 
determined thys question alreadye. For whan 
the cleargie therein agreed that the Englyshe 
Bybles should remayne whiche were translated 
afore Wickliffes dayes, they consequentlye 
dydde agree that to have the Byble in Englishe 
was none hurte. And in that they forbade 
any new translacion to be read till it wer 
approved by the bishoppes: it appeareth well 
therby that theyr intent was that the byshop 
should approve it if he found it faultlesse, and 
also of reason amend it where it wer faultye, 
but if 6 the manne wer an heretike that made 
it, or the faultes such and so many, as it were 



1 hesitate 2 hinders 3 body 4 pagans 
8 unless 



8 hesitated 



34 



WILLIAM TYNDALE 



more eth ' to make it all newe than mend it. 
As it happed forbothe poyntesinthetranslacion 

of Tyndall. 

" Now if it so be that it woulde happely be 
thought not a thyng motel y to be adventured 
to sel all on a flushe at ones, 1 and dashe rashclve 
out Holye Scrypture in everye lewde felowes 
teeth: yet, thynketh me, ther might such a 
moderacion be taken therein, as neither good 
verteous lev folke shoulde lacke it, nor rude and 
rashe braynes abuse 3 it. For it might be with 
diligence well and tritely translated by some 
good catholike and well learned man, or by 
ilvvers dividing the labour among them, and 
after conferring theyr several parties together 
eche with other. Ami after that might the 
worke he alowed and approved by the ordi- 
naries, and by theyr authorities so put unto 
prent, as all the copies should come whole 
unto the bysshoppes hande. Which he may 
after his discretion ami wisedom deliver to such 
as he perceiveth honest, sad, and verteous, with 
a good monition and fatherly counsel! to use 
it reverently with humble heart and lowly mind, 
rather sekyng therin occasion of devotion than 
of despicion.' 1 And providing as much as 
may he, that the boke be after the decease of 
the partie brought again and reverently re- 
stored unto the ordinarye. So that as nere as 
niave he devised, no man have it but of the 
ordinaries hande, and by hym thought and re- 
puted for such as shall >e likly to use it to Gods 
honor and merite of his own soule. Among 
whom if any he proved after to have abused it, 
than 5 the use therof to he forboden him, eyther 
for ever, or till he he waxen wyser." 

"By Our Lady," quod your frend, "this 
way misliketh not me. But who should sette 
the price of the hooke?" "Forsoth," quod I, 
"i hat reken I a thing of litle force. lor 
mil her wer it a great matter for any man in 
maner " to give a grote or twain above the mene 7 
price for a boke of so greate profite, nor for 
the bysshope to geve them all free, wherin he 
myght serve his dyoces with the cost of x. li., 8 
I tliynke, or xx. markes. Which summe, I 
dare save there is no bishop hut he wold he glad 
to bestow l0 about a thing that might do his hole 
dyoces so special a pleasure with such a spiri- 
tuall profit." "By my trouth," quod he, "vet 
wene " I that the peple would grudge to have 
it on this wise delivered them at the bishops 



1 easy 2 once * misuse * dispute * then 
'practically "ordinary B ten pounds •twenty 

marks (, := £13 6s. Bd.) 10 spend " ween, think 



hande, and had lever ' pay for it to the printer 
than have it of the byshop free." "It might so 
happen with some," quod I. "But yet, in 
myne opinion, ther wer in that maner more 
wilfulness than wisedom or any good mind in 
suche as would not be content so to receive 
them. And therfore I wold think in good 
faith that it wold so fortune in few. But, for 
God, the more dout would be, lest they would 
grudge and hold themsclf sore greved that wold 
require it and wer happely denied it : which 
I suppose would not often happen unto any 
honest housholder to be by his discretion rever- 
ently red in his house. But though it wer not 
taken '-' to every lewde lad in his own handes 
to rede a litle rudely whan he list, and than 
cast the boke at his heles, or among other such 
as himselfe to kepe a quotlihet 3 ami a pot 
parlament 4 upon, I trow there wil no wise 
man find a faulte therin. 

"Ye spake right now of the Tewes, among 
whom the hole peple have, ye say, the Scripture 
in their hands. And ye thought it no reason 
that we shold reken Christen men lesse worthy 
therto than them. Wherin I am as ye see of 
your own opinion. But yet wold God, we had 
the like reverence to the Scripture of God that 
they have. For I assure you I have heard very 
worshipful] folke say which have been in their 
houses, that a man could not hyre a Jewe to sit 
down upon his Byhle of the Okie Testament, 
but he taketh it with grot reverence in hand 
whan he wil rede, and reverently layeth it up 
agayn whan he hath doone. Wheras we, God 
forgeve us ! take a litle regarde to sit down on 
our Byhle with the Old Testament and the 
New too. Which homely handeling, as it 
procedeth of litle reverence, so doth it more and 
more engrendre in the mind a negligence and 
contempt of Gods holi words. . . ." 

WILLIAM TYNDALE (d. 1536) 

THE GOSPELL OF S. MATHEYV. THE 
FYFTH CHAPTER 

When he sawe the people, he went up into a 
mountaine, and wen lie was sett, hvs disciples 
cam unto him, and he opened his mouth, ami 
taught them sayinge: "Blessed are the poure 
in sprete: for thers is the kyngdom of heven. 
Blessed are they that mourne: for they shalhe 
comforted. Blessed are the meke: for they 

1 liefer, rather 2 deliver s debate * drunken dis- 
cussion 



THE GOSPEU, OF S. MATHEW 



35 



shall inhcrct the erthe. Blessed are they which 
hunger and thurst for rightewesnes: for they 
shalbe fylled. Blessed are the mercyfull: 
for they shall obteyne mercy. Blessed are the 
pure in hert: for they shall se God. Blessed 
are the maynteyners of peace: for they shalbe 
called the chyldren of God. Blessed are they 
which suffre persecucion for rightewesnes sake: 
for thers is the kyngdom of heven. Blessed are 
ye when men shall revyle you, and persecute 
you, and shal falsly saye all manner of evle 
sayinges agaynst you for my sake. Rejoyce 
and be gladde, for greate is youre rewarde in 
heven. For so persecuted they the prophettes 
which were before youre dayes. 

"Ye are the salt of the erthe, but ah ! yf the 
saltc be once unsavery, what can be salted 
there with? it is thence forthe good for noth- 
ynge, but to be cast out at the dores, and that 
men treade it under fete. Ye are the light of 
the worlde. A cite that is sett on an hill 
cannot be hyd, nether do men light a candle 
and put it under a busshell, but on a candel- 
stycke, and it lightcth all those which are in 
the housse. Se that youre light so schyne 
before men, that they maye se youre good 
werkes, and gloryfie youre Father, which is in 
heven. 

"Ye shall not thynke, that y am come to 
disanull the lawe other 1 the prophettes: no, y 
am not come to dysanull them, but to fulfyll 
them. For truely y say unto you, tyll heven 
and erthe perysshe, one jott, or one tytle of the 
lawe shall not scape, tyll all be fulfylled. 

"Whosoever breaketh one of these leest 
commaundmentes, and shall teche men so, he 
shalbe called the leest in the kyngdom of heven. 
But whosoever shall observe and teache them, 
that persone shalbe called greate in the kyng- 
dom of heven. 

"For I say unto you, except youre rightewes- 
nes excede the rightewesnes of the scrybes and 
pharyses, ye cannot entre into the kyngdom 
of heven. 

"Ye have herde howe it was sayd unto them 
of the olde tyme. Thou shalt not kyll. Who- 
soever shall kyll, shalbe in daunger of judge- 
ment. But I say unto you, whosoever ys 
angre with hys brother, shalbe in daunger of 
judgement. Whosoever shall say unto his 
brother, Racha! shalbe in daunger of a 
counseill. But whosoever shall say unto his 
brother, Thou fole! shalbe in daunger of hell 
fyre. Therfore when thou offerest thy gyfte 



'or 



att the altre, and there remembrest that thy 
brother hath cny thynge agaynst the: leve 
there thyne offrynge before the altre, and go 
thy waye fyrst and reconcyle thy silff to thy 
brother, and then come and offre thy gyfte. 

"Agre with thine adversary at once, whyles 
thou arte in the waye with hym, lest thine 
adversary delivre the to the judge, and the 
judge delyvrc the to the minister, 1 and then 
thou be cast into preson. I say unto the 
verely: thou shalt not come out thence tyll 
thou have payed the utmoost forthyngc. 2 

"Ye have herde howe yt was sayde to them 
of olde tyme, thou shalt not commytt advoutrie. 3 
But I say unto you, that whosoever eyeth a 
wyfe, lustynge after her, hathe commytted 
advoutrie with her alredy in his hert. 

" Wherfore yf thy right eye offende the, plucke 
hym out and caste him from the, Better hit is 
for the, that one of thy membres perysshe then 
that thy whole body shuld be caste in to hell. 
Also yf thy right honde offend the, cutt hym of 
and caste hym from the. Better hit is that 
one of thy membres perisshe, then that all thy 
body shulde be caste in to hell. 

"Hit ys sayd, whosoever put 4 awaye his 
wyfe, let hym geve her a testymonyall of her 
divorcement. But I say unto you: whosoever 
put 4 awaye hys wyfe (except hit be for fornica- 
cion) causeth her to breake matrimony, And 
who soever maryeth her that is divorsed, break- 
eth wedlocke. 

"Agayne ye have herde, howe it was said to 
them of olde tyme, thou shalt not forswere 
thysilfe, but shalt performe thine othe to God. 
But I saye unto you swere not at all: nether 
by heven, for hit ys Goddes seate : nor yet by 
the erth, For it is hys fote stole: Nether by 
Jerusalem, for it is the cite of the greate kynge: 
Nether shalt thou swere by thy heed, because 
thou canst not make one heer whyte, or blacke : 
But youre communication shalbe, ye, ye: nay, 
nay. For whatsoever is more then that, com- 
meth of evle. 

"Ye have herde howe it is sayd, an eye for 
an eye: a tothe for a tothe. But I say unto 
you, that ye withstand, 5 not wronge: But yf a 
man geve the a blowe on thy right cheke, turne 
to hym the othre. And yf eny man wyll sue 
the at the lawe, and take thi coote from the, 
lett hym have thi clooke also. And whosoever 
wyll compell the to goo a myle, goo wyth him 
twayne. Geve to him that axeth: and from 
him that wolde borowe turne not away. 

1 officer 2 farthing 3 adultery * puts 5 resist 



36 



HUGH LATIMER 



"Ye have herde howe it is saide: thou shalt 
love thyne neghbour, and hate thyne enemy. 
But y saye unto you, love youre enemies. 
Blesse them that cursse you. Doo good to 
them that hate you, Praye for them which doo 
you wronge, and persecute you, that ye maye 
be the chyldren of youre hevenly Father: for 
he maketh his sunne to aryse on the evle and 
on the good, and sendeth his reyne on the juste 
and on the onjuste. For if ye shall love them, 
which love you: what rewarde shall ye have? 
Doo not the publicans even so? And if ye 
be frendly to youre brethren only: what sin- 
guler thynge doo ye? Doo nott the publicans 
lyke wyse? Ye shall therfore be perfecte, even 
as youre hevenly Father is perfecte." 

HUGH LATIMER (i 4 8s?-iS55) 

From THE FIRST SERMON BEFORE 
KING EDWARD VI 

And necessary it is that a kyng have a treas- 
ure all wayeys in a redines, for that, and such 
other affayres, as be dayly in hys handes. 
The which treasure, if it be not sufficiente, he 
maye lawfully and wyth a salve ' conscience 
take taxis of hys subjectes. For it were not 
mete 2 the treasure shoulde be in the subjectes 
purses whan the money shoulde be occupied, 3 
nor it were not best for themselves, for the lacke 
there of, it myght cause both it and all the rest 
that they have shold not long be theirs, And so 
for a necessarye and expedyent occacion, it is 
warranted by Goddes word to take of the sub- 
jectes. But if there be sufhcyente treasures, 
and the burdenynge of subjectes be for a vayne 
thyng, so that he wyl require thus much, or so 
much, of his subjects, whyche perchaunce are 
in great necessitie and penurye, then this covet- 
ous intent, and the request thereof, is to muche, 
whych God forbiddeth the king her in this place 
of scripture to have. But who shal se this 
"to much," or tell the king of this "to much"? 
Thinke you anye of the Kynges prevye cham- 
ber? No. For feare of losse of faver. Shall 
any of his sworne chapelins ? No. Thei bee of 
the clausset 4 and kepe close such matters. But 
the Kynge him selfe must se this "to much," 
and that shal he do by no meanes with the 
corporal eyes. Wherfore he must have a paler 
of spectacles, whiche shall have two cleaxe 
syghtes in them, that is, the one is fayth, not a 
seasonable fayeth, which shall laste but a whyle, 
but a fayeth whiche is continuynge in God. 



The seconde cleare sighte is charitie, whych is 
fervente towardes hys Chrysten brother. By 
them two must the Kynge se ever whan he 
hath to muche. But fewe therbe that useth 
these spectacles, the more is theyr dampnacion. 
Not wythoute cause Chrisostome wyth admira- 
cion 1 sayeth, "Miror si aliquis rectorum potest 
salvari. I marvell if anye ruler can be saved." 
Whyche wordes he speaketh not of an impos- 
sibilitie, but of a great difncultie; for that their 
charge is marvelous great, and that none aboute 
them dare shew them the truth of the thing 
how it goth. Wei then, if God wyl not alowe 
a king to much, whither 2 wyl he alowe a sub- 
ject to much? No, that he wil not. Whether 
have any man here in England to much? I 
doubte most riche men have to muche, for 
wythout to muche, we can get nothynge. As 
for example, the Phisicion. If the pore man 
be dyseased, he can have no helpe without to 
much; and of the lawyer the pore man can 
get no counsell, expedicion, nor helpe in his 
matter, except he geve him to much. At mar- 
chandes handes no kynd of wares can be had, 
except we geve for it to muche. You lande- 
lordes, you rent -reisers, I maye saye you 
steplordes, you unnaturall lordes, you have for 
your possessions yerely to much. For that 3 
herebefore went for .xx. or .xl. pound by yere, 
(which is an honest porcion to be had gratis in 
one Lordeshyp, of a nother mannes sweat and 
laboure) now is it let for .1. (fifty) dr a .C. (hun- 
dred) pound by yeare. Of thys "to muche" 
commeth thys monsterous and portentious 
dearthis made by man. Not with standynge 
God doeth sende us plentifullye the fruites of 
the earth, mercyfullye, contrarve unto oure 
desertes, not wythstandynge " to muche," 
whyche these riche menne have, causeth suche 
dearth, that poore menne (whyche live of theyr 
laboure) can not wyth the sweate of their face 
haw a livinge, all kinde of victales is so deare, 
pigges, gese, capons, chickens, egges, etc. 

These thinges with other are so unresonably 
enhansed. And I thinke verelv that if it this 4 
continewe, we shal at length be const ray ned 
to pave for a pygge a pounde. I wyl t el you, 
my lordes and maysters, thys is not for the 
kynges honoure. Yet some wyl save, knowest 
thou what belongeth unto the kinges honoure 
better then we? I answere, that the true 
honoure of a Kinge, is moost perfectly men- 
cioned and painted furth in the scriptures, of 
which, if ye be ignoraunt, for lacke of tyme, 



1 safe 2 proper * made use of * closet 



1 wonder - whether 



8 what 



thus 



THE FIRST SERMON BEFORE KING EDWARD VI 



37 



that ye cannot reade it, albeit, that your coun- 
saile be never so politike, yet is it not for the 
kynges honoure. What his honoure meaneth 
ye canot tel. It is the kynges honoure that his 
subjectes bee led in the true religion. That 
all hys prelates and Cleargie be set about their 
worcke in preching and studieng, and not to 
be interrupted from their charge. Also it is 
the Kinges honour that the commen wealth be 
avaunsed, that the dearth of these forsaied 
thynges be provided for, and the commodities 
of thys Realme so emploied, as it may be to the 
setting his subjectes on worke, and kepyng 
them from idlenes. And herin resteth the 
kinges honour and hys office. So doynge, his 
accompte before God shalbe alowed, and re- 
warded. Furder ' more, if the kinges honour 
(as sum men say) standeth in the great multi- 
tude of people, then these grasiers, inclosers, 
and rente-rearers, are hinderers of the kings 
honour. For wher as have bene a great meany 2 
of householders and inhabitauntes, ther is nowe 
but a shepherd and his dogge, so thei hynder 
the kinges honour most of al. My lordes and 
maisters, I say also that all suche procedynges 
which are agaynste the Kynges honoure (as I 
have a part declared before) and as far as I 
can perceive, do intend plainly, to make the 
yomanry slavery and the Cleargye shavery. 
For suche worckes are al syngular, 3 private 
welth and commoditye. We of the cleargye 
had to much, but that is taken away; and 
nowe we have to little. But for myne owne 
part, I have no cause to complaine, for, I 
thanke God and the kyng, I have sufficient, 
and God is my judge I came not to crave of 
anye man any thyng; but I knowe theim that 
have to litle. There lyeth a greate matter by 
these appropriacions, greate reformacions is to 
be had in them. I knowe wher is a great 
market Towne with divers hamelets and in- 
habitauntes, wher do rise yereli of their labours 
to the value of .1. (fifty) pounde, and the vicar 
that serveth (being so great a cure) hath but 
.xii. or .xiiii. markes by yere, so that of thys 
pension he is not able to by him bokes, nor 
geve hys neyghboure dryncke, al the great 
gaine goeth another way. My father was a 
Yoman, and had no landes of his owne, onlye 
he had a farme of .hi. or .iiii. pound by yere at 
the uttermost, and here upon he tilled so much 
as kepte halfe a dosen men. He had walke 4 
for a hundred shepe, and my mother mylked 

1 further 2 company 3 for the benefit of an indi- 
vidual 4 pasture 



.xxx. kyne. He was able and did find the king 
a harnesse, wyth hym selfe, and hys horsse, 
whyle he came to the place that he should 
receyve the kynges wages. I can remembre 
that I buckled hys harnes when he went unto 
Blacke-heeath felde. He kept me to schole, 
or elles I had not bene able to have preached 
before the kinges majestie nowe. He maryed 
my systers with v. pounde or .xx. nobles a 
pece, so that he broughte them up in godlines, 
and feare of God. 

He kept hospitalitie for his pore neighbours. 
And sum almess ' he gave to the poore, and all 
thys did he of the sayd farme. Wher he that 
now hath it, paieth .xvi. pounde by yere or 
more, and is not able to do any thing for his 
Prynce, for himselfe, nor for his children, or 
geve a cup of drincke to the pore. Thus al the 
enhansinge and rearing goth to your private 
commoditie and wealth. So that where ye 
had a single "to much," you have that: and 
syns the same, ye have enhansed the rente, and 
so have encreased an other "to much." So 
now ye have doble to muche, whyche is to to 
much. But let the preacher preach til his 
tong be worne to the stompes, nothing is 
amended. We have good statutes made for 
the commen welth as touching comeners, en- 
closers, many metinges and Sessions, but in the 
end of the matter their 2 commeth nothing forth. 
Wei, well, thys is one thynge I wyll saye unto 
you, from whens it commeth I knowe, even, 
from the devill. I knowe his intent in it. For 
if ye bryng it to passe, that the yomanry be not 
able to put their sonnes to schole (as in dede 
universities do wonderously decaye all redy) 
and that they be not able to mary their daugh- 
ters to the avoidyng of whoredome, I say ye 
plucke salvation from the people and utterly 
distroy the realme. For by yomans sonnes the 
fayth of Christ is and hath bene mayntained 
chefely. Is this realme taught by rich mens 
sonnes? No, no! Reade the Cronicles; ye 
shall fynde sumtime noble mennes sonnes 
which have bene unpreaching byshoppes and 
prelates, but ye shall finde none of them learned 
men. But verilye, they that shoulde loke to 
the redresse of these thinges, be the greatest 
against them. In thyse realm are a great 
meany 3 of folkes, and amongest many I knowe 
but one of tender zeale, at the mocion of his 
poore tennauntes, hath let downe his landes 
to the olde rentes for their reliefe. For Goddes 
love, let not him be a Phenix, let him not be 

1 alms 2 there 3 company 



38 



ROGER ASCHAM 



alone, let hym not be an Hermite closed in a 
wall, sum good man follow him and do as he 
geveth example ! Surveiers ' there be, that 
gredyly gorge up their covetouse guttes, hande- 
makers 2 I meane (honest men I touch not 
but al suche as survei 3 ) ; thei make up 4 their 
mouthes but the commens s be utterlye undone 
by them. Whose ° bitter cry ascendyng up 
to the eares of the God of Sabaoth, the gredy 
pyt of hel burning fire (without great repent- 
aunce) do tary and loke for them. 7 A redresse 
God graunt ! For suerly, suerly, but that .ii. 
thynges do comfort me, I wold despaire of the 
redresse in these maters. One is, that the 
kinges majestie whan he commeth to age wyll 
se a redresse of these thinges so out of frame, 
geving example by letting doune his owne 
landes first and then enjoyne hys subjectes to 
folowe him. The second hope I have, is, I 
beleve that the general accomptyng 8 daye is 
at hande, the dreadfull day of judgement I 
meane, whiche shall make an end of al these 
calamities and miseries. For as the scryptures 
be, Cum dixerint, pax pax, "When they shal 
say, Peace, peace," Omnia tuta, "All thynges 
are sure," then is the day at hand, a mery day, 
I saye, for al such as do in this world studye to 
serve and please god and continue in his fayth, 
feare and love: and a dreadful, horrible day 
for them that decline from God, walking in 
ther owne waves, to whom as it is wrytten in 
the xxv of Mathew is sayd: lie maledicti in 
ignem eternum, "Go ye curssed into ever- 
lastynge punyshment, wher shalbe waylinge 
and gnashing of teeth." But unto the other he 
shal save: Venite benedicti, "come ye blessed 
chyldren of my father, possesse ye the kyng- 
dome prepared for you from the beginninge of 
the worlde." Of the which God make us al 
partakers! Amen. 

ROGER ASCHAM (1515-1568) 

THE SCHOLEMASTER 

From THE FIRST BOOKE FOR THE YOUTH 

After the childe hath learned perfitlie the 
eight partes of speach, let him then learne the 
right joyning togither of substantives with 
adjectives, the nowne with the verbe, the rela- 
tive with the antecedent. And in learninge 
farther hys Syntaxis, by mine advice, he shall 

1 government officials 2 grafters 3 serve as 

overseers * fill 6 commons, common people ° i.e. 
the commons 7 i.e. the surveyors 8 accounting 



not use the common order in common scholes 
for making of Latines: wherby the childe 
commonlie learneth, first, an evill choice 
of wordes, (and right choice of wordes, saith 
Caesar, is the foundation of eloquence) than, 1 
a wrong placing of wordes: and lastlie, an ill 
framing of the sentence, with a perverse judge- 
ment, both of wordes and sentences. These 
faultes, taking once roote in yougthe, be never, 
or hardlie, pluckt away in age. Moreover, 
there is no one thing, that hath more, either 
dulled the wittes, or taken awaye the will of 
children from learning, than the care they have, 
to satisfie their masters, in making of Latines. 

For the scholer is commonlie beat for the mak- 
ing, when the master were more worthie to be 
beat for the mending, or rather, marring of the 
same : The master many times being as igno- 
rant as the childe what to saie propcrlie and 
fitlie to the matter. Two scholemasters have 
set forth in print, either of them a booke, of 
soch kindeof Latines, Horman and Whittington. 

A childe shall learne of the better of them, 
that, which an other daie, if he be wise, and 
cum to judgement, he must be faine to unleame 
againe. 

There is a waie, touched in the first booke 
of Cicero Dc Oratore, which, wiselie brought 
into scholes, truely taught, and constantly used, 
would not onely take wholly away this butcherlie 
feare in making of Latines, but would also, with 
ease and pleasure, and in short tinte, as I know 
by good experience, worke a true choice and 
placing of wordes, a right ordering of sentences, 
an easie understandyng of the tonge, a readines 
to speake, a facultie to write, a true judgement, 
both of his owne, and other mens doinges, 
what tonge so ever he doth use. 

The waie is this. After the three concord- 
ances 2 learned, as I touched before, let the 
master read unto hym the Epistles of Cicero, 
gathered togither and chosen out by Sturmius 
for the capacitie of children. First, let him 
teach the childe, cherefullie and plain lie, the 
cause, and matter of the letter: then, let him 
construe it into Englishe, so oft, as the childe 
may easilie carie awaie the understanding of 
it: Lastlie, parse it over perfitlie. This done 
thus, let the childe, by and by, 3 both construe 
and parse it over againe; so that it may 
appeare that the childe douteth 4 in nothing 
that his master taught him before. After this, 
the childe must take a paper booke, and sitting 

1 then 2 See the first sentence of this selection. 

3 immediately 4 is at a loss 



, 



THE SCHOLEMASTER 



39 



in some place where no man shall prompe him, 
by him self, let him translate into Englishe his 
former lesson. Then shewing it to his master, 
let the master take from him his Latin booke, 
and pausing an houre, at the least, than 1 let 
the childe translate his owne Englishe into 
Latin againe, in an other paper booke. When 
the childe bringeth it, turned into Latin, the 
master must compare it with Tullies 2 booke, 
and laie them both togither: and where the 
childe doth well, either in chosing, or true 
placing of Tullies wordes, let the master praise 
him, and saie, " Here ye do well." For I assure 
you, there is no such whetstone to sharpen a 
good witte and encourage a will to learninge as 
is praise. 

But if the childe misse, either in forgetting a 
worde, or in chaunging a good with a worse, 
or misordering the sentence, I would not have 
the master, either froune, or chide with him, 
if the childe have done his diligence, and used 
no trewandship 3 therin. For I know by good 
experience, that a childe shall take more profit 
of two fautes 4 jentlie warned of then of foure 
thinges rightly liitt. For than 5 the master 
shall have good occasion to saie unto him, 
"iV., 6 Tullie would have used such a worde, 
not this: Tullie would have placed this word 
here, not there: would have used this case, 
this number, this person, this degree, this 
gender: he would have used this moode, this 
tens, this simple, rather than this compound: 
this adverbe here, not there: he would have 
ended the sentence with this verbe, not with 
that nowne or participle," etc. 

In these fewe lines, I have wrapped up the 
most tedious part of Grammer: and also the 
ground of almost all the Rewles, that are so 
busilie taught by the Master, and so hardlie 
learned by the Scholer, in all common Scholes: 
which after this sort, the master shall teach 
without all error, and the scholer shall learne 
without great paine: the master being led by 
so sure a guide, and the scholer being brought 
into so plaine and easie a waie. And therefore, 
we do not contemne Rewles, but we gladlie 
teach Rewles: and teach them, more plainlie, 
sensiblie, and orderlie, than they be commonlie 
taught in common Scholes. For whan the 
Master shall compare Tullies booke with his 
Scholers translation, let the Master, at the first, 
lead and teach his Scholer to joyne the Rewles 
of his Grammer booke, with the examples of 



1 then z Cicero's 8 negligence 
6 iV stands for the name of the child. 



4 faults 6 then 



his present lesson, untill the Scholer, by him 
selfe, be hable to fetch out of his Grammer 
everie Rewle for everie Example: So as the 
Grammer booke be ever in the Scholers hand, 
and also used of him, as a Dictionarie, for everie 
present use. This is a lively and perfite waie 
of teaching of Rewles : where the common waie, 
used in common Scholes, to read the Grammer 
alone by it selfe, is tedious for the Master, hard 
for the Scholer, colde and uncumfortable for 
them bothe. 

Let your Scholer be never afraide to aske you 
any dout, but use discretlie the best allurements 
ye can to encorage him to the same : lest his 
overmoch fearinge of you drive him to seeke 
some misorderlie shifte: as, to seeke to be 
helped by some other booke, or to be prompted 
by some other Scholer, and so goe aboute to 
begile you moch, and him selfe more. 

With this waie, of good understanding the 
mater, plaine construinge, diligent parsinge, 
dailie translatinge, cherefull admonishinge, 
and heedefull amendinge of faultes: never 
leavinge behinde juste praise for well doinge, 
I would have the Scholer brought up withall, 
till he had red, and translated over the first booke 
of Epistles chosen out by Sturmius, with a good 
peece of a Comedie of Terence also. 

All this while, by mine advise, the childe 
shall use to speake no Latine: For, as Cicero 
saith in like mater, with like wordes, loquendo, 
male loqui discunt. And, that excellent 
learned man, G. Budaeus, in his Greeke Com- 
mentaries, sore complaineth, that whan he be- 
gan to learne the Latin tonge, use of speaking 
Latin at the table, and elsewhere, unadvisedlie, 
did bring him to soch an evill choice of wordes, 
to soch a crooked framing of sentences, that no 
one thing did hurt or hinder him more, all the 
daies of his life afterward, both for redinesse in 
speaking, and also good judgement in writinge. 

In very deede, if children were brought up, 
in soch a house, or soch a Schole, where the 
Latin tonge were pro perlie and pcrfitlie spoken, 
as Tib. and Ca. Gracci were brought up, in 
their mother Cornelias house, surelie than ' 
the dailie use of speaking were the best and 
readiest waie to learne the Latin tong. But, 
now, commonlie, in the best Scholes in England, 
for wordes, right choice is smallie regarded, true 
proprietie whollie neglected, confusion is 
brought in, barbariousnesse is bred up so in 
yong wittes, as afterward they be, not onelie 
marde for speaking, but also corrupted in 

1 then 



40 



ROGER ASCIIAM 



judgement : as with moch adoc, or never at all 
they be brought to right frame againe. 

Yd all iiuii covet to have their children 
speake Latin: ami so do I verie earnestlie 
too. We hot he have one purpose: we agree in 
desire, we wish one end : hut we differ somewhat 
in order and waie, that leadeth rightlie to that 
end. Other would have them speake at all 
adventures: ami, SO they he speakinge, to 
speake, the Master careth not, the Scholer 
knoweth not, what. This is to seeme and not 
to bee: except it he to he hoKle without shame, 
rashe without skill, full of wordes without 
witte. I wish to have them speake so as it 
may well appeare that the braine doth goveme 
the tonge, and that reason leadeth forth the 
taulke. Socrates doctrine is true in Plato, and 
well marked, and truelv uttered by Horace in 
Arte Poetica, that, where so ever knowledge 
doth aCCOmpanie the witte, there best utterance 
doth alwaies awaite upon the tonge: For good 
understanding must first he bred in the childe, 
which, being nurished with skill, and use of 
writing (as 1 will teach more largelie hereafter) 
is the onelie waie to bring him to judgement 
and readinesse in speakinge : ami that infarre 
shorter time (if he followe constantlie the trade ' 
of this litle lesson) than he shall do, by common 
teachinge of the common scholes in England. 

But, to go forward, as you perceive your 
scholer to goe belter and better on awaie, 
first, with understanding his lesson more quick- 
lie, with parsing more readelie, with translating 
more spedelie and perlitlie then he was wonte, 
after, give him longer lessons to translate: 
and withall, begin to teach him, both in nownes, 
and verbes, what is Proprium, and what is 
Translatum, what Synonymum, what Diversion, 
which be Contraria, and which be most notable 
Phrases in all his lecture: As, Proprium, Rex 
Sepultw est magnified; Translatum, Cum Mo 
prineipe, Sepulta est &» gloria et Solus Rei- 
publicae; Synonyma, Ensis,Gladius; Laudare, 
praedieare; Diversa, Diligere, A mare; Colore, 
Exardescere; Iuimieus, Ilostis; Contraria, 
Acerbum £r~ luctuosum helium, Dulcis 6 s lotto 
Pax; Phrases, Pare verba, abjieere obeilientiam. 

Your scholer then, must have the third paper 
booke; in the which, after he hath done his 
double translation, let him write, after this sort 
foure of diese forenamed sixe, diligentlie marked 
out of everie lesson. Or else, three, or two, if 
there be no moe: and if there be none of 
these at all in some lecture, yet not omitte the 

1 practice. 



order, but write these: Diversa, nulla; Contra- 
ria, nulla ; ele. 

This diligent translating, joyncd with this 
heedeful marking, in the foresaid Epistles, and 
afterwarde in some plaine Oration of Tullie, 
as pro lege Monti: pro Archie Poeta, or in those 
three ail C. Caes: shall worke soch a right 
choise of wordes, so streight a framing of 
sentences, soch a true judgement, both to 
write skilfullie, and speake wittielie, as wise men 
shall both praise and marvcll at. 

If your scholer do misse sometimes, in 
marking rightlie these foresaid sixe thinges, 
chide not hastelie: for that shall, both dull his 
witte, and discorage his diligence: but monish 
him gentelie: which shall make him, both will- 
ing to amende, and glad to go forward in love 
ami hope of learning. I have now wished, 
twise or thrise, this gentle nature, to be in a 
Scholemaster: And, that I have done so, 
neither by chance, nor without some reason, 
I will now declare at large, wliv, in mine opin- 
ion, love is fitter then feare, gentlenes better 
than beating, to bring up a childe rightlie in 
learninge. 

With the common use of teaching and beating 
in common scholes of England, I will not great- 
lie contend: which if I did, it were but a small 
grammatical] controversie, neither belonging to 
heresie nor treason, 1 nor greatly touching (.hid 
nor the Prince: although in very deede, in the 
end, the good or ill bringing up of children, 
doth as much serve to the good or ill service, of 
(hid, our Prince, and our whole countrie, as 
any one thing doth beside. 

I do gladlie agree with all good Scholemasters 
in these pointes: to have children brought to a 
good perfitnes in learning: to all honestie in 
maners: to have all fautcs : rightlie amended: 
to have everie vice severelie corrected: but for 
the order and waie that leadeth rightlie to these 
pointes, we somewhat differ. For commonlie, 
many scholemasters, some, as I have seen, 
moe, a as I have heard tell, be of so crooked a 
nature, as, when they meete with a hard wittcd 
scholer, they rather breake him than bowe him, 
rather marre him then mend him. For whan 
the scholemaster is angrie with some other 
matter, then will he sonest faul to beate his 
scholer: and though he him selfe should be 
punished for his folic, yet must he beate some 
Scholer for his pleasure: though there be no 
cause for him to do so, nor yet fault in the 
Scholer to deserve so. These, ye will say, be 

1 This is a proverbial expression. 2 faults s more 



THE SCHOLEMASTER 



4i 



fond ' scholemasters, and fewe they be that 
be found to be soch. They be fond in deede, 
but surelie overmany soch be found everie 
where. But this will I say, that even the wisest 
of your great beaters, do as oft punishe nature 
as they do correcte faultes. Yea, many times, 
the better nature is sorer punished : For, if one, 
by quicknes of witte, take his lesson readelie, 
an other, by hardncs of with', taketh it not so 
speedelie: the first is alwaies commended, the 
other is commonlie punished: whan a wise 
scholemaster should rather discretelie consider 
the right disposition of both their natures, 
and not so moch wey 2 what either of them is 
able to do now, as what either of them is likelie 
to do hereafter. For this I know, not onclie 
by reading of bookes in my studie, but also by 
experience of life, abrode in the world, that 
those which be commonlie the wisest, the best 
learned, and best men also, when they be olde, 
were never commonlie the quickest of witte, 
when they were yonge. The causes why, 
amongest other, which be many, that move 
me thus to thinke, be these fewe, which I will 
rccken. Quicke wittes, commonlie, be apte 
to take, unapte to keepe: soone hote and 
desirous of this and that : as colde and sone 
wery of the same againe : more quicke to enter 
spedelie, than hable 3 to pearse 4 farre : even 
like over sharpe tooles, whose edges be verie 
soone turned. Soch wittes delite them selves 
in easie and pleasant studies, and never passe 
farre forward in hie and hard sciences. And 
therefore the quickest wittes commonlie may 
prove the best Poetes, but not the wisest 
Orators: readie of tonge to speake boldlie, 
not deepe of judgement, either for good counsell 
or wise writing. Also, for maners and life, 
quicke wittes, commonlie, be, in desire, new- 
fangle, 5 in purpose unconstant, light to promise 
any thing, readie to forget every thing: both 
benefite and injurie : and thcrby neither fast to 
frend, nor fearefull to foe: inquisitive of every 
trifle, not secret in greatest affaires: bolde, 
with any person: busic, in every matter: 
sothing ° soch as be present : nipping any that 
is absent: of nature also, alwaies, flattering 
their betters, envying their equals, despising 
their inferiors: and, by quicknes of witte, 
verie quicke and readie, to like none so well as 
them selves. 

Moreover commonlie, men, very quicke of 
witte, be also, verie light of conditions: 7 
and thereby, very readie of disposition, to be 

1 foolish 2 weigh 3 able 4 pierce 6 fond of 
novelty ° agreeing with 7 character 



caried over quicklie, by any light cumpanie, 
to any riot and unthriftiness, when they be 
yonge: and therfore seldome, either honest 
of life, or riche in living, when they be olde. 
For, quicke in witte and light in maners, 
be, either seldome troubled, or verie sone wery, 
in carying a verie hevie purse. Quicke wittes 
also be, in most part of all their doinges, over- 
quicke, hastie, rashe, headie, and brainsicke. 
These two last wordes, Headie, and Brain- 
sicke, be fitte and proper wordes, rising natural- 
lie of the matter, and tearmed aptlie by the 
condition, of over moch quickenes of witte. 
In yougthe also they be readie scoffers, 
privie mockers, and ever over light and mery. 
In aige, sone testie, very waspishe, and alwaies 
over miserable : and yet fewe of them cum to 
any great aige, by reason of their misordered 
life when they were yong: but a great deale 
fewer of them cum to shewe any great counte- 
nance, or beare any great authoritie abrode in 
the world, but either live obscurelie, men know 
not how, or dye obscurelie, men marke not 
whan. They be like trees, that shewe forth 
faire blossoms and broad leaves in spring time, 
but bring out small and not long lasting fruite 
in harvest time: and that, onelie soch as fall 
and rotte before they be ripe, and so, never, or 
seldome, cum to any good at all. For this ye shall 
finde most true by experience, that amongest 
a number of quicke wittes in youthe, fewe be 
found, in the end, either verie fortunate for 
them selves, or verie profitable to serve the 
common wealth, but decay and vanish, men 
know not which way: except a very fewe, to 
whom peradventure blood and happie par- 
entage may perchance purchace a long standing 
upon the stage. The which felicitie, because 
it commeth by others procuring, not by their 
owne deservinge, and stand by other mens feete, 
and not by their own, what owtward brag so 
ever is borne by them, is in deed, of it selfe, 
and in wise mens eyes, of no great estimation. 

JOHN FOXE (1516-1587) 

ACTS AND MONUMENTS OF THESE 
LATTER AND PERILLOUS DAYES 

THE BEHAVIOUR OF DR. RIDLEY AND 

MASTER LATIMER AT THE TIME 

OF THEIR DEATH 

Upon the north-side of the towne, in the ditch 
over against Baily ' Colledge, the place of 

1 Balliol 



I-' 



JOHN FOXE 



execution was appointed; and for feare of any 
tumuli that might arise, to lei ' the burning of 
them, the Lord Williams was commanded by 
the Queenes letters and the householders of the 
city, to be there assistant, sufficientlie ap- 
pointed. And when every thing was in a 
readiness, the prisoners were brought forth by 

the maior and the baylilTes. Master Ridley 
had a taire blackc gowne furred, and faced with 
foines,' SUCh as he was wont to weare luring 
bishop, and a tippet of velvet, furred likewise, 
aboul his neck, a velvet night cap upon his head, 
and a corner cap upon the same, going in a paire 
of slippers to the stake, and going between the 
maior and an alderman, ete. After him came 
Master Latimer in a poor BristOW freeze 8 
frock all worne, with his buttoned cap, and a 

kerchiefe on his head all readie to the fire, a 

newe long shrowdc hanging o\er his host- ' 
downe to the feet ; which at the first sight stirred 
mens hearts to rue upon them, beholding on the 
one side the honour they sometime had, and 
on the other, the calamitie whereunto thev were 
fallen. 

Master DoctOUr Ridley, as he passed toward 
Bocardo,' looked up where Master Cranmcr 
did lie, hoping In-like to have scene him at the 
glass windowe, and to have spoken unto him. 
Hut then Master Cranmcr was husie with Frier 
Soto and his fellow es, disputing together, SO 
that he could not see him through that occasion. 
Then Master Ridley, looking backe, espied 
Master Latimer comming after, unto whom he 
said, "Oh, he ye there?" " Yea," said Master 
Latimer, "have after as fast as 1 can follow." 
So he following a prettic wav off, at length they 
came both to the stake, the one after the other, 
where first IV. Ridley eiitring the place, mar 
vellous earnestly holding up both his hands, 
looked towards heaven, d'hen shortlie after 
espying Master Latimer, with a wondrous 

cheereful looke he ran to him, imbraced and 

kissed him; and, as they that stood neere re- 
ported, comforted him saying, " lie of good 

heart, brother, for (\o<.\ will either asswage the 
furie of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide 
it." With that went he to the stake, kneeled 
downe by it, kissed it, and most effect uoiislie 
praied, and behind him Master Latimer kneeled, 
as earnestlie calling upon God as he. After 
they arose, the one talked with the other a little 
while, till they which were appointed to see 

' hinder * trimmings of beech-martin fur 3 ;i 
woolen cloth made at Bristol ' breeches 

'tin- old north gate at Oxford, used as a prison 



the execution, remooved themselves out of the 
sun. What thev said 1 can learn of no man. 

Then Dr. Smith, of whose recantation in 
King Edwards time ye heard before, beganne 
his sermon to them upon this text of St. Paul 
in the [3 chap, of the first epistle to the Corin- 
thians: Si corpus meum tradam igni, chari- 
tatem autem non habeam, nihil inde uHlitaiis 
COpio, that is, "If 1 yeehle my body to the lire 
to he burnt, and have not charity, 1 shall gaine 
nothing thereby." Wherein he alledged that 
the goodnesse of the cause, and not the order 

of death, maketh the holines of the person; 

which he confirmed by the examples of Judas, 
and of a woman in Oxford that of late hanged 
her selfe, for that they, and such like as he 
recited, might then be adjudged righteous, 
which desperatelie sundered their lives from 
their bodies, as hee feared that those men 
that stood before him would doe. But he 
cried stil ' to the people to beware of them, for 
the) were heretikes, and died out of the church. 
And on the other side, he declared their diversi- 
ties in opinions, as Lutherians, U'.colampadians, 
Zuinglians, of which sect they were, he said, 
and that was the worst: but the old church of 
Christ and the catholikc faith hclecved far 
otherwise. At which place they- Lifted uppe 
both their hands and eies to heaven, as it were 
calling God to witnes of the truth: the which 
countenance they made in many other places 
of his sermon, whereas they thought he spake 
amisse. Hee ended with a veric short ex 
Imitation to them to recant, and come home 
again to the church, and save their lives and 
soules, which else wen- condemned. His ser- 
mon was scant in all a quarter of an houre. 

Doctor Ridley said to Master Latimer, 
"Will you begin to answer the sermon, or shall 
1."' Master Latimer said: "Begin you first, 
I pray you." "1 will," said Master Ridley. 

Then the wicked sermon being ended, Dr. 
Ridley and Master Latimer kneeled downe 
Uppon their knees towards my Lord Williams 
of Tame, the vice chancellour of Oxford, and 
divers other commissioners appointed for that 
purpose, which sate upon a forme ■ thereby. 
Unto whom Master Ridley said: "1 beseech 
you, my lord, even for Christs sake, that 1 may 
Speake but two or three wordes." And whilest 
my lord bent his head to the maior and vice- 
chancellor, to know (as it appeared) whether 
lie might give him leave to speake, the bailiffes 
ami Dr. Marshall, vice-chancellor, ran hastily 

1 constantly - Ridley and Latimer 3 bench 



ACTS AND MONUMENTS OF THESE PERILLOUS DAYES 



43 



unto him, and with their hands stopped his 
mouth, and said: "Master Ridley, if you will 
revoke your erroneous opinions, and recant 
the same, you shall not onely have liberty so 
to doe, but also the benefite of a subject; that 
is, have your life." "Not otherwise?" said 
Maister Ridley. "No," quoth Dr. Marshall. 
"Therefore if you will not so doe, then there 
is no remedy but you must suffer for your 
deserts." "Well," quoth Master Ridley, "so 
long as the breath is in my bodie, I will never 
deny my Lord Christ, and his knowne truth: 
Gods will be done in me!" And with that he 
rose up and said with a loud voice: "Well 
then, I commit our cause to almightie God, 
which shall indifferently l judge all." To 
whose saying, Maister Latimer added his old 
posie, 2 "Well! there is nothing hid but it shall 
be opened." And he said, he could answer 
Smith well enough, if hee might be suffered. 

Incontinently 3 they were commanded to 
make them readie, which they with all meek- 
nesse obeyed. Master Ridley tooke his gowne 
and his tippet, and gave it to his brother-in-lawe 
Master Shepside, who all his time of imprison- 
ment, although he might not be suffered to come 
to him, lay there at his owne charges to provide 
him necessaries, which from time to time he 
sent him by the sergeant that kept him. Some 
other of his apparel that was little worth, hee 
gave away; other the bailiff es took. He gave 
away besides divers other small things to gentle- 
men standing by, and divers of them pitifullie 
weeping, as to Sir Henry Lea he gave a new 
groat; and to divers of my Lord Williams 
gentlemen some napkins, some nutmegges, 
and races 4 of ginger; his diall, and such other 
things as he had about him, to every one that 
stood next him.' Some plucked the pointes 
of his hose. Happie was he that might get 
any ragge of him. Master Latimer gave 
nothing, but very quickly suffered his keeper to 
pull off his hose, and his other array, which 
to look unto was very simple : and being stripped 
into his shrowd, 5 hee seemed as comly a person 
to them that were there present as one should 
lightly see; and whereas in his clothes hee 
appeared a withered and crooked sillie olde 
man, he now stood bolt upright, as comely a 
father as one might lightly behold. 

Then Master Ridley, standing as yet in his 
trusse, 6 said to his brother: "It were best for 
me to go in my trusse still." "No," quoth his 
brother, "it will put you to more paine: and 

1 impartially 2 motto 3 immediately 4 roots 6 shirt 
6 a padded jacket 



the trusse will do a poore man good." Where- 
unto Master Ridley said: "Be it, in the name 
of God;" and so unlaced himselfe. Then 
beeing in his shirt, he stood upon the foresaid 
stone, and held up his hande and said: "O 
heavenly Father, I give unto thee most heartie 
thanks, for that thou hast called mee to be a 
professour of thee, even unto death. I be- 
seech thee, Lord God, take mercie upon this 
realme of England, and deliver the same from 
all her enemies." 

Then the smith took a chaine of iron, and 
brought the same about both Dr. Ridleyes and 
Maister Latimers middles; and as he was 
knocking in a staple, Dr. Ridley tooke the 
chaine in his hand, and shaked the same, for 
it did girde in his belly, and looking aside to the 
smith, said: "Good fellow, knocke it in hard, 
for the flesh will have his course." Then his 
brother did bringe him gunnepowder in a bag, 
and would have tied the same about his necke. 
Master Ridley asked what it was. His brother 
said, "Gunnepowder." "Then," sayd he, 
"I take it to be sent of God; therefore I will 
receive it as sent of him. And have you any," 
sayd he, "for my brother?" meaning Master 
Latimer. "Yea, sir, that I have," quoth his 
brother. "Then give it unto him," sayd hee, 
"betime; 1 least ye come too late." So his 
brother went, and caried of the same gunne- 
powder unto Maister Latimer. 

In the mean time Dr. Ridley spake unto my 
Lord Williams, and saide: "My lord, I must 
be a suter unto your lordshippe in the behalfe 
of divers poore men, and speciallie in the cause 
of my poor sister; I have made a supplication 
to the Queenes Majestie in their behalves. I 
beseech your lordship for Christs sake, to be a 
mean to her Grace for them. My brother here 
hath the supplication, and will resort to your 
lordshippe to certifie you herof. There is 
nothing in all the world that troubleth my 
conscience, I praise God, this only excepted. 
Whiles I was in the see of London divers poore 
men tooke leases of me, and agreed with me for 
the same. Now I heare say the bishop that 
now occupieth the same roome will not allow 
my grants unto them made, but contxarie unto 
all lawe and conscience hath taken from them 
their livings, and will not surfer them to injoy 
the same. I beseech you, my lord, be a meane 
for them; you shall do a good deed, and God 
will reward you." 

Then they brought a faggotte, kindled with 

1 early 



44 



JOHN FOXE 



fire, and laid the same downe at Dr. Ridleys 
feete. To whome Master Latimer spake in this 
manner: "Bee of good comfort, Master Ridley, 
and play the man. Wee shall this day light 
such a candle, by Gods grace, in England, as 
I trust shall never bee putte out." 

And so the lire being given unto them, when 
Dr. Ridley saw the fire flaming up towards him, 
he cried with a wonderful lowd voice: "In 
manus tuas, nomine, commendo spiritum 
meum: Domine, recipe spiritum meum." 
And after, repeated this latter part often in 
English, "Lord, Lord, receive my spirit;" 
Master Latimer crying as vchementlie on the 
other side, "O Lather of heaven, receive my 
soule!" who received the flame as it were 
imbracing of it. After that he had stroaked 
his face with his hands, and as it were bathed 
them a little in the fire, he soone died (as it 
appeared) with verie little painc or none. 
And thus much concerning the end of this olde 
and blessed servant of God, Master Latimer, 
for whose laborious travailes, 1 fruitful] life, 
and constant death the whole realme hath cause 
to give great thanks to almightie God. 

Bui Master Ridley, by reason of the evill 
making of the fire unto him, because the 
wooden faggots were laide about the gosse - 
and over high built, the lire burned first be- 
neath, being kept downe by the wood; which 
when he felt, hee desired them for Christes 
sake to let the lire come unto him. Which 
when his brother in law heard, but not well 
understood, intending to rid him out of his 
paine (for the which cause lice gave attendance), 
as one in such sorrow not well advised what 
hee did, heaped faggots upon him, so that he 
cleane covered hini, which made the tire tnore 
vehement beneath, that it burned cleane all his 
neather parts, before it once touched the upper; 
and that made him leape up ami down under 
the faggots, and often desire them to let the 
lire come unto him, saying, "I cannot bume." 
Which indeed appeared well; for, after his 
legges were consumed by reason of his st rug- 
ling through the paine (whereof hee had no 
release, but onelie his contentation in God), 
he showed that side toward us cleane, shirt ami 
all untouched with flame. Vet in all this 
torment he forgate not to call unto God still, 

1 labors 2 gorsc, furze 



having in his mouth, "Lord have mercy upon 
me," intermedling ' this cry, "Let the fire come 
unto me, I cannot burne." In which paines he 
laboured till one of the standers by with his 
bill • pulled off the faggots above, ami where he 
saw the tire flame up, he wrested himself unto 
that side. And when the flame touched the 
gunpowder, he was seen to stirre no more, but 
burned on the other side, falling downe at 
Master Latimers feete. Which some said 
happened by reason that the chain loosed; 
other said that he fel over the chain by reason 
of the poise of his body, and the weakness of 
the neather lims. 

Some saiil that before he was like to fall from 
the stake, hee desired them to hold him to it 
with their billes. However it was, surelie it 
mooved hundreds to teares, in beholding the 
horrible sight; for I thinke there was none that 
had not cleane exiled all humanitie and mercie, 
which would not have lamented to beholde 
the furie of the lire so to rage upon their bodies. 
Signes there were of sorrow on evcrie side. 
Some tooke it greevouslie to see their deathes, 
whose lives they held full deare: some pitticd 
their persons, that thought their soules had no 
need thereof. His brother mooved many men, 
seeing his miserable case, seeing (I say) him 
compelled to such infelicitie, that he thought 
then to doc him best service when he hastned 
his end. Some cried out of the lucke, to see 
his indevor (who most dearelie loved him, and 
sought his release) turne to his greater vexation 
and increase of paine. But whoso considered 
their preferments in time past, the places of 
honour that they some time occupied in this 
common wealth, the favour they were in with 
their princes, ami the opinion of learning they 
had in the university where they studied, could 
nol chuse but sorrow with teares to see so great 
dignity, honour, and estimation, so necessary 
members sometime accounted, so many godly 
vertues, the study oi *o manic yeres, such ex- 
cellent learning, to be put into the tire anil 
consumed in one moment. Well I dead they 
are, anil the reward of this world they have 
alreadie. What reward remaineth for them in 
heaven, the day of the Lords glorie, when hee 
commeth with his saints, shall shortlie, I trust, 
declare. 

1 intermingling - a kind of weapon consisting of 
a curved blade fixed at the end of a pole 






THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586) 



ARCADIA 



BOOK I. CHAP. I 



And now they were already come upon the 
stays, 1 when one of the sailors descried a 
galley which came with sails and oars directly 
in the chase of them, and straight perceived 
it was a well-known pirate, who hunted, not 
only for goods, but for bodies of men, which 
he employed either to be his galley-slaves or 
to sell at the best market. Which when the 
master understood, he commanded forthwith 
to set on all the canvas they could and fly 
homeward, leaving in that sort poor Pyrocles, 
so near to be rescued. But what did not 
Musidorus say? what did he not offer to 
persuade them to venture the tight? But fear, 
standing at the gates of their ears, put back 
all persuasions; so that he had nothing to 
accompany Pyrocles but his eyes, nor to suc- 
cour him but his wishes. Therefore praying 
for him, and casting a long look that way, he 
saw the galley leave the pursuit of them and 
turn to take up the spoils of the other wreck; 
and, lastly, he might well see them lift up the 
young man; and, "Alas!" said he to himself, 
"dear Pyrocles, shall that body of thine be 
enchained? Shall those victorious hands of 
thine be commanded to base offices? Shall 
virtue become a slave to those that he slaves 
to viciousness? Alas, better had it been thou 
hadst ended nobly thy noble days. What 
death is so evil as unworthy servitude?" But 
that opinion soon ceased when he saw the galley 
setting upon another ship, which held long and 
strong fight with her; for then he began afresh 
to fear the life of his friend, and to wish well 
to the pirates, whom before he hated, lest in 
their ruin he might perish. But the fishermen 
made such speed into the haven that they 
absented his eyes from beholding the issue; 



1 come upon the stays = go about from one tack to 
another 



where being entered, he could procure neither 
them nor any other as then 1 to put themselves 
into the sea; so that, being as full of sorrow 
for being unable to do anything as void of 
counsel how to do anything, besides that sick- 
ness grew something upon him, the honest 
shepherds Strephon and Claius (who, being 
themselves true friends, did the more perfectly 
judge the justness of his sorrow) advise him 
that he should mitigate somewhat of his woe, 
since he had gotten an amendment in fortune, 
being come from assured persuasion of his 
death to have no cause to despair of his life, 
as one that had lamented the death of his 
sheep should after know they were but strayed, 
would receive pleasure, though readily he 
knew not where to find them. 



CHAP. II 

"Now, sir," said they, "thus for ourselves 
it is. We are, in profession, but shepherds, 
and, in this country of Laconia, little better 
than strangers, and, therefore, neither in skill 
nor ability of power greatly to stead you. 
But what we can present unto you is this: 
Arcadia, of which country we are, is but a little 
way hence, and even upon the next confines. 
There dwelleth a gentleman, by name Kalan- 
der, who vouchsafed) much favour unto us; 
a man who for his hospitality is so much 
haunted 2 that no news stir but come to his 
ears; for his upright dealing so beloved of his 
neighbours that he hath many ever ready 
to do him their uttermost service, and, by the 
great goodwill our Prince bears him, may soon 
obtain the use of his name and credit, which 
hath a principal sway, not only in his own 
Arcadia, but in all these countries of Pelopon- 
nesus; and, which is worth all, all these things 
give him not so much power as his nature gives 
him will to benefit , so that it seems no music 
is so sweet to his ear as deserved thanks. 
To him we will bring you, and there you may 

1 as then = at the time 2 visited 



•15 



46 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



recover again your health, without which you 
cannot be able to make any diligent search for 
your friend, and, therefore but in that respect, 
you must labour for it. Besides, we are sure 
the comfort of courtesy and ease of wise counsel 
shall not be wanting." 

Musidorus (who, besides he was merely ' 
unacquainted in the country, had his wits 
astonished 2 with sorrow) gave easy consent to 
that from which he saw no reason to disagree; 
and therefore, defraying 3 the mariners with a 
ring bestowed upon them, they took their 
journey together through Laconia, Claius 
and Strephon by course carrying his chest for 
him, Musidorus only bearing in his counte- 
nance evident marks of a sorrowful mind sup- 
ported with a weak body; which they per- 
ceiving, and knowing that the violence of sor- 
row is not, at the first, to be striven withal 
(being like a mighty beast, sooner tamed with 
following than overthrown by withstanding) 
they gave way unto it for that day and the next, 
never troubling him, either with asking ques- 
tions or finding fault with his melancholy, 
but rather fitting to his dolour dolorous dis- 
courses of their own and other folk's misfor- 
tunes. Which speeches, though they had not 
a lively entrance to his senses, shut up in sor- 
row, yet, like one half asleep, he took hold of 
much of the matters spoken unto him, so as 
a man may say, ere sorrow was aware, they 
made his thoughts bear away something else 
beside his own sorrow, which wrought so in 
him that at length he grew content to mark 
their speeches, then to marvel at such wit in 
shepherds, after to like their company, and 
lastly to vouchsafe conference; so that the 
third day after, in the time that the morning 
did strow roses and violets in the heavenly 
floor against the coming of the sun, the nightin- 
gales, striving one with the other which could 
in most dainty variety recount their wrong- 
caused sorrow, made them put off their sleep; 
and, rising from under a tree, which that night 
had been their pavilion, they went on their 
journey, which by and by welcomed Musi- 
dorus' eyes, wearied with the wasted soil of 
Laconia, with delightful prospects. There 
were hills which garnished their proud heights 
with stately trees; humble valleys whose 
base estate seemed comforted with refreshing 
of silver rivers; meadows enamelled with all 
sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; thickets which, 
being lined with most pleasant shade, were 



witnessed so to by the cheerful disposition of 
many well-tuned birds; each pasture stored 
with sheep, feeding with sober security, while 
the pretty lambs, with bleating oratory, craved 
the dams' comfort: here a shepherd's boy 
piping, as though he should never be old; 
there a young shepherdess knitting, and withal 
singing, and it seemed that her voice com- 
forted her hands to work, and her hands kept 
time to her voice's music. As for the houses 
of the country (for many houses came under 
their eye) they were all scattered, no two being 
one by the other, and yet not so far off as that 
it barred mutual succour: a show, as it were, 
of an accompanable ' solitariness, and of a 
civil 2 wildness. "I pray you," said Musi- 
dorus, then first unsealing his long-silent lips, 
"what countries be these we pass through, 
which are so diverse in show, the one wanting 
no store, 3 the other having no store but of 
want?" 

"The country," answered Claius, "where 
you were cast ashore, and now are passed 
through, is Laconia, not so poor by the barren- 
ness of the soil (though in itself not passing 
fertile) as by a civil war, which, being these 
two years within the bowels of that estate, 
between the gentlemen and the peasants (by 
them named helots) hath in this sort, as it 
were, disfigured the face of nature and made it 
so unhospitall as now you have found it; 
the towns neither of the one sidevnor the other 
willingly opening their gates to strangers, nor 
strangers willingly entering, for fear of being 
mistaken. 

"But this country, where now you set your 
foot, is Arcadia ; and even hard by is the house 
of Kalander, whither we lead you. This 
country being thus decked with peace and (the 
child of peace) good husbandry. These houses 
you see so scattered are of men, as we two are, 
that live upon the commodity of their sheep, 
and therefore, in the division of the Arcadian 
estate, are termed shepherds; a happy people, 
wanting 4 little, because they desire not much." 

"What cause, then," said Musidorus, "made 
you venture to leave this sweet life and put 
yourself in yonder unpleasant and dangerous 
realm?" "Guarded with poverty," answered 
Strephon, "and guided with love." "But 
now," said Claius, "since it hath pleased you 
to ask anything of us, whose baseness is such 
as the very knowledge is darkness, give us 
leave to know something of you and of the young 



1 entirely 2 stricken 3 paying 



1 companionable 2 civilized 3 plenty * lacking 



ARCADIA 



47 



man you so much lament, that at least we may 
be the better instructed to inform Kalander, 
and he the better know how to proportion his 
entertainment." Musidorus, according to the 
agreement between Pyrocles and him to alter 
their names, answered that he called himself 
Palladius, and his friend Dai'phantus. "But, 
till I have him again," said he, " I am indeed 
nothing, and therefore my story is of nothing. 
His entertainment, since so good a man he is, 
cannot be so low as I account my estate; and, 
in sum, the sum of all his courtesy may be to 
help me by some means to seek my friend." 

They perceived he was not willing to open 
himself further, and therefore, without further 
questioning, brought him to the house; about 
which they might see (with fit consideration 
both of the air, the prospect, and the nature of 
the ground) all such necessary additions to a 
great house as might well show Kalander knew 
that provision is the foundation of hospitality, 
and thrift the fuel of magnificence. The house 
itself was built of fair and strong stone, not 
affecting so much any extraordinary kind of 
fineness as an honourable representing of a firm 
stateliness; the lights, doors, and stairs rather 
directed to the use of the guest than to the eye 
of the artificer, and yet as the one chiefly heeded, 
so the other not neglected; each place hand- 
some without curiosity, and homely without 
loathsomeness; not so dainty as not to be trod 
on, nor yet slubbered up 1 with good-fellowship ; 2 
all more lasting than beautiful, but that the 
consideration of the exceeding lastingness made 
the eye believe it was exceeding beautiful; 
the servants, not so many in number as cleanly 
in apparel and serviceable in behaviour, testi- 
fying even in their countenances that their 
master took as well care to be served as of them 
that did serve. One of them was forthwith 
ready to welcome the shepherds, as men who, 
though they were poor, their master greatly fa- 
voured; and understanding by them that the 
young man with them was to be much ac- 
counted of, for that they had seen tokens of 
more than common greatness, howsoever now 
eclipsed with fortune, he ran to his master, who 
came presently forth, and pleasantly welcoming 
the shepherds, but especially applying him to 
Musidorus, Strephon privately told him all 
what he knew of him, and particularly that he 
found this stranger was loth to be known. 

"No," said Kalander, speaking aloud, "I 
am no herald to inquire of men's pedigrees; 



it sufficeth me if I know their virtues; which, 
if this young man's face be not a false witness, 
do better apparel his mind than you have done 
his body." While he was speaking, there came 
a boy, in show like a merchant's prentice, who, 
taking Strephon by the sleeve, delivered him 
a letter, written jointly both to him and Claius 
from Urania ; which they no sooner had read, 
but that with short leave-taking of Kalander, 
who quickly guessed and smiled at the matter, 
and once again, though hastily, recommend- 
ing the young man unto him, they went away, 
leaving Musidorus even loth to part with them, 
for the good conversation he had of them, and 
obligation he accounted himself tied in unto 
them; and therefore, they delivering his chest 
unto him, he opened it, and would have pre- 
sented them with two very rich jewels, but 
they absolutely refused them, telling him they 
were more than enough rewarded in the know- 
ing of him, and without hearkening unto a 
reply, like men whose hearts disdained all 
desires but one, gat speedily away, as if the 
letter had brought wings to make them fly. 
But by that sight Kalander soon judged that 
his guest was of no mean calling; ' and there- 
fore the more respectfully entertaining him, 
Musidorus found his sickness, which the fight, 
the sea, and late travel had laid upon him, grow 
greatly, so that fearing some sudden accident, 
he delivered the chest to Kalander, which was 
full of most precious stones, gorgeously and 
cunningly set in divers manners, desiring him 
he would keep those trifles, and if he died, 
he would bestow so much of it as was needful 
to find out and redeem a young man naming 
himself Dai'phantus, as then in the hands of 
Laconian pirates. 

But Kalander seeing him faint more and 
more, with careful speed conveyed him to the 
most commodious lodging in his house; where, 
being possessed with an extreme burning fever, 
he continued some while with no great hope 
of life; but youth at length got the victory of 
sickness, so that in six weeks the excellency 
of his returned beauty was a credible ambas- 
sador of his health, to the great joy of Kalander, 
who, as in this time he had by certain friends 
of his, that dwelt near the sea in Messenia, 
set forth a ship and a galley to seek and succour 
Dai'phantus, so at home did he omit nothing 
which he thought might either profit or gratify 
Palladius. 

For, having found in him (besides his bodily 



1 made slovenly 2 revelry 



1 rank 



48 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



gifts, beyond the degree of admiration) by 
daily discourses, which he delighted himself 
to have with him, a mind of most excellent 
composition (a piercing wit, quite void of 
ostentation, high-erected thoughts seated in 
a heart of courtesy, an eloquence as sweet in 
the uttering as slow to come to the uttering, 
a behaviour so noble as gave a majesty to 
adversity, and all in a man whose age could 
not be above one-and-twenty years), the good 
old man was even enamoured with a fatherly 
love towards him, or rather became his servant 
by the bonds such virtue laid upon him; once, 
he acknowledged himself so to be, by the badge 
of diligent attendance. 

CHAP. Ill 

But Palladius having gotten his health, and 
only staying there to be in place where he might 
hear answer of the ships set forth, Kalander 
one afternoon led him abroad to a well-arrayed 
ground he had behind his house, which he 
thought to show him before his going, as the 
place himself more than in any other delighted. 
The backside of the house was neither field, 
garden, nor orchard ; or rather it was both field, 
garden, and orchard: for as soon as the de- 
scending of the stairs had delivered them down, 
they came into a place cunningly set with trees 
of the most taste-pleasing fruits; but scarcely 
they had taken that into their consideration, 
but that they were suddenly stepped into a 
delicate green; of each side of the green a 
thicket bend, 1 behind the thickets again new 
beds of flowers, which being under the trees, 
the trees were to them a pavilion, and they to 
the trees a mosaical floor, so that it seemed 
that Art therein would needs be delightful, by 
counterfeiting his enemy Error, and making 
order in confusion. 

In the midst of all the place was a fair 
pond, whose shaking crystal was a perfect 
mirror to all the other beauties, so that it 
bare show of two gardens, — one in deed, the 
other in shadows; and in one of the thickets 
was a fine fountain, made thus: a naked Venus, 
of white marble, wherein the graver had used 
such cunning that the natural blue veins of the 
marble were framed in fit places to set forth 
the beautiful veins of her body; at her breast 
she had her babe ^Eneas, who seemed, having 
begun to suck, to leave that to look upon her 
fair eyes, which smiled at the babe's folly, 
the mean while the breast running. Hard by 



was a house of pleasure, built for a summer 
retiring-place, whither Kalander leading him, 
he found a square room, full of delightful pic- 
tures, made by the most excellent workman of 
Greece. There was Diana when Acteon saw 
her bathing, in whose cheeks the painter had 
set such a colour, as was mixed between shame 
and disdain : and one of her foolish Nymphs, 
who weeping, and withal louring, one might 
see the workman meant to set forth tears of 
anger. In another table x was Atalanta ; the 
posture of whose limbs was so lively expressed, 
that if the eyes were the only judges, as they be 
the only seers, one would have sworn the very 
picture had run. Besides many more, as of 
Helena, Omphale, Iole: but in none of them 
all beauty seemed to speak so much as in a 
large table, 1 which contained a comely old 
man, with a lady of middle age, but of excellent 
beauty; and more excellent would have been 
deemed, but that there stood between them a 
young maid, whose wonderfulness took away 
all beauty from her, but that, which it might 
seem she gave her back again by her very shadow. 
And such difference, being known that it did 
indeed counterfeit a person living, was there 
between her and all the other, though God- 
desses, that it seemed the skill of the painter 
bestowed on the other new beauty, but that the 
beauty of her bestowed new skill of the painter. 
Though he thought inquisitiveness an un- 
comely guest, he could not choose, but ask 
who she was, that bearing show of one being 
in deed, 2 could with natural gifts go beyond 
the reach of invention. Kalander answered, 
that it was made by 3 Philoclea, the younger 
daughter of his prince, who also with his wife 
were contained in that table: the painter mean- 
ing to represent the present condition of the 
young lady, who stood watched by an over- 
curious eye of her parents: and that he would 
also have drawn her eldest sister, esteemed 
her match for beauty, in her shepherdish attire; 
but that the rude clown her guardian would 
not suffer it: neither durst he ask leave of the 
Prince for fear of suspicion. Palladius per- 
ceived that the matter was wrapped up in some 
secrecy, and therefore would for modesty 
demand no further: but yet his countenance 
could not but with dumb eloquence desire it : 
which Kalander perceiving, "Well," said he, 
"my dear guest, I know your mind, and I will 
satisfy it: neither will I do it like a niggardly 
answerer, going no further than the bounds 



1 field of grass 



1 picture 2 existing in reality 3 of 



ARCADIA 



49 



of the question, but I will discover unto you, 
as well that wherein my knowledge is common 
with others, as that which by extraordinary 
means is delivered unto me : knowing so much 
in you, though not long acquainted, that I 
shall find your ears faithful treasurers." 

So then sitting down in two chairs; and 
sometimes casting his eye to the picture, he 
thus spake: — "This country Arcadia, among 
all the provinces of Greece, hath ever been 
had in singular .reputation, partly for the 
sweetness of the air, and other natural benefits, 
but principally for the well-tempered minds 
of the people, who (finding that the shining 
title of glory, so much affected by other nations, 
doth indeed help little to the happiness of life) 
are the only people which, as by their justice 
and providence, give neither cause nor hope 
to their neighbours to annoy them, so are 
they not stirred with false praise to trouble 
others' quiet, thinking it a small reward for the 
wasting of their own lives in ravening that their 
posterity should long after say they had done 
so. Even the Muses seem to approve their 
good determination by choosing this country 
for their chief repairing place, and by bestowing 
their perfections so largely here, that the very 
shepherds have their fancies lifted to so high 
conceits as the learned of other nations are 
content both to borrow their names and 
imitate their cunning. 

" Here dwelleth and reigneth this prince 
whose picture you see, by name Basilius; a 
prince of sufficient skill to govern so quiet 
a country, where the good minds of the former 
princes had set down good laws, and the well 
bringing up of the people doth serve as a most 
sure bond to hold them. But to be plain with 
you, he excels in nothing so much, as in the 
zealous love of his people, wherein he doth not 
only pass all his own foregoers, but as I think 
all the princes living. Whereof the cause 
is, that though he exceed not in the virtues 
which get admiration, as depth of wisdom, 
height of courage and largeness of magnifi- 
cence, yet is he notable in those which stir 
affection, as truth of word, meekness, courtesy, 
mercifulness, and liberality. 

"He, being already well stricken in years, 
married a young princess, named Gynecia, 
daughter to the king of Cyprus, of notable 
beauty, as by her picture you see ; a woman of 
great wit, and in truth of more princely virtues 
than her husband ; of most unspotted chastity, 
but of so working a mind, and so vehement 
spirits, as a man may say it was happy she 



took a good course, for otherwise it would have 
been terrible. 

"Of these two are brought to the world two 
daughters, so beyond measure excellent in all 
the gifts allotted to reasonable creatures, that 
we may think they were born to show that 
Nature is no stepmother to that sex, how much 
soever some men, sharp-witted only in evil 
speaking, have sought to disgrace them. The 
elder is named Pamela, by many men not 
deemed inferior to her sister. For my part, 
when I marked them both, methought there 
was (if at least such perfections may receive 
the word of more) more sweetness in Philo- 
clea, but more majesty in Pamela: methought 
love played in Philoclea's eyes and threatened 
in Pamela's: methought Philoclea's beauty 
only persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts 
must yield; Pamela's beauty used violence, 
and such violence as no heart could resist. 
And it seems that such proportion is between 
their minds: Philoclea so bashful as though her 
excellencies had stolen into her before she was 
aware, so humble that she will put all pride out 
of countenance, — in sum, such proceeding as 
will stir hope, but teach hope good manners; 
Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride 
with not knowing her excellencies, but by 
making that one of her excellencies to be void 
of pride, — her mother's wisdom, greatness, 
nobility, but (if I can guess aright) knit with a 
more constant temper. 

"Now, then, our Basilius being so publicly 
happy as to be a prince, and so happy in that 
happiness as to be a beloved prince, and so 
in his private blessed as to have so excellent a 
wife, and so over-excellent children, hath of 
late taken a course which yet makes him more 
spoken of than all these blessings. For, hav- 
ing made a journey to Delphos, and safely re- 
turned, within short space he brake up his 
court and retired himself, his wife, and children, 
into a certain forest hereby, which he calleth 
his desert; wherein (besides a house appointed 
for stables, and lodgings for certain persons of 
mean calling, who do all household services) he 
hath builded two fine lodges ; in the one of them 
himself remains with his younger daughter 
Philoclea (which was the cause they three were 
matched together in this picture), without hav- 
ing any other creature living in that lodge with 
him. Which, though it be strange, yet not so 
strange as the course he hath taken with the 
princess Pamela, whom he hath placed in the 
other lodge : but how think you accompanied ? 
truly with none other but one Dametas, the 



So 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



most arrant, doltish down that 1 think ever 

was without the privilege of a bauble, with his 
wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, in whom no 
wit can devise anything wherein they -may 
pleasure her, but to exercise ber patience and 
to serve for a foil of her perfections. This 

loutish clown is such that you never saw so 

ill favoured a vizard; ' his behaviour such that 
he is beyond the degree of ridiculous; and for 
his apparel, even as 1 would wish him : Miso his 
wife, so handsome a beldame : that only her face 

and her splay fool have made her accused for 
a witch; only one good point she hath, that 

she observes decorum, 8 having a froward mind 
in a wretched body. Between these two per- 
sonages (who never agreed in any humour hut 
in disagreeing) is issued forth Mistress Mopsa, 
a t'lt woman to participate of both their per- 
fections; but because a pleasant fellow of my 

acquaintance set forth her praises in wise, 1 

will only repeat them, and spare mine own 
tongue, since she goes for a woman. These 
verses are these, which I have so often caused 
to be sung, that 1 have them without book. 

"What length of verse can serve brave Mopsa's 

good to show .' 
Whose virtues strange, and beauties such, as 

no man them may know? 
Thus shrewdly burdened then, how can my 

Muse escape .' 
The gods must help, and precious things must 

Serve to show her shape. 
Like great god Saturn fair, and like fair Venus 

chaste: 
As smooth as Tan, as Juno mild, like goddess 

Iris faced.' 
With Cupid she foresees, and goes god Vulcan's 

pace: 
And for a taste of all these gifts, she steals god 

Momus' grace. 
Her forehead jacinth like, her cheeks of opal 

hue, 
Her twinkling eves bedecked with pearl, her 

lips as sapphire blue : 
Her hair like era pal stone; ; ' her mouth O 

heavenly wide; 
Her skin like burnished gold, her hands like 

silver ore untried. 
As for her parts unknown, which hidden sure 

are best: 
Happy be they which well believe, and never 

seek the rest. 

'mask, face •crone 'harmony *Irii 
identified with Eris (Strife) by the older mytkoiogists. 

■ toad stone 



"Now truly having made these descriptions 
unto you, methinks you should imagine that I 
rather feign some pleasant device, than recount 

a truth, that a prince (not banished from his 

own wits) could possibly make so unworthy 
a choice. Hut truly (dear guest) so it is, that 
princes (whose doings have been often sooihed ' 
with good success) think nothing so absurd, 
which they cannot make honourable. The 
beginning of his credit was by the prince's 
straying out of the way, one time he hunted, 
where meeting this fellow, and asking him the 
way; and so falling into other questions, he 
found some of his answers (as a dog sure if he 
could speak, had wit enough to describe his 
kennel) not insensible, and all uttered with 
such rudeness, which he interpreted plainness 
(though there be great difference between them) 
that Basilius conceiving a sudden delight, took 
him to his Court, with apparent show of his 
good opinion: where the flattering courtier 
had no sooner taken the prince's mind, but 
that there were straight reasons to confirm the 
prince's doing, and shadows of virtues found 
for Dametas. His silence grew wit, his blunt- 
ness integrity, his beastly ignorance virtuous 
simplicity: and the prince (according to the 
nature oi great persons, in love with that he 
had done himself) fancied, that his weakness 
with his presence would much be mended. 
And so like a creature of his own making, he 
liked him more and more, and thus having first 
given him the office of principal hcrdman, 
lastly, since he took this strange determination, 
he hath in a manner put the life of himself and 
his children into his hands. Which authority 
(like too great a sail for so small a boat'* doth 
so oversway ix>or Dametas, that if before he 
were a good fool in a chamber, he might be 
allowed it now in a comedy: so as 1 doubt me 
(1 fear me indeed) my master will in the end 
(with his cost) find, that his office is not to 
make men, but to use men as men are; no more 
than a horse will be taught to hunt, or an ass 
to manage. Hut in sooth I am afraid 1 have 
given your ears too great a surfeit, with the 
gross discourses of that heavy piece of tlesh. 
Hut the zealous grief 1 conceive to see so great 
an error in my Lord, hath made me bestow 
more words, than 1 confess so base a subject 
deserveth. 

CHAP. IV 

"Thus much now that 1 have told you is 
nothing more than in effect any Arcadian knows. 

1 made good, verified 



ARCADIA 



5i 



But what moved him to ihis strange solitariness 
hath been imparted, as I think, hut to one per- 
son living. Myself ran conjecture, and indeed 

more than conjecture, by this accidenl thai I 
will tell you. I have an only son, by name 
Clitophon, who is now absent, preparing for 
his own marriage, which I mean shortly shall 
be here celebrated. This son of mine, while 
the prince kept his court, was of his bed- 
chamber; now, since the breaking up thereof, 
returned home; and showed me, among other 
things he had gathered, the copy which he had 
taken of a letter, which, when the prince had 
nad, he had laid in a window, presuming no- 
body durst look in his writings; but my son 
not only took a time to read it, hut to copy it 
In truth I blamed Clitophon for the curiosity 
which made him break his duty in such a kind, 
whereby kings' secrets are subject to be re 
Vealed; but, since il was done, I was content 
to lake SO much profil as to know it. Now 
here is the letter, that 1 ever since for my good 
liking, have (allied ahoul me; which before I 
read unto you, I must tell you from whom it 
came. It is a nobleman of this country, named 
Philanax, appointed by the prince regent in 
this time of his retiring, and most worthy so 
to he; for there lives no man whose excellent 
wit more simply einhraceth integrity, besides 
his unfeigned love to his master, wherein never 
vet any could make question, saving whether 
lie loved Basilius or the prince heller; a rare 
temper, while most men either servilely yield to 
all appetites, or with an obstinate austerity, 
Looking to that they fancy good, in effect 
neglect the prince's person. This, then, being 
the man, whom of all other, and most worthy, 
the prince chiefly loves, it should seem (for 
more than the letter I have not to guess by) 
that (he prince, upon his return from Delphos 
(Philanax then lying sick), had written unto 
him his determination, rising, as evidently 
appears, upon some oracle he had there re- 
ceived, whereunto he wrote this answer. 

Philanax mis Letteb to Basilius 
"'Most redouted and beloved prince, if as 

well il had pleased you at vour going to I )clphos 
as now, to have used my humble service, both I 
should in heller season, and to heller purpose 
have spoken: and you (if my speech had pre 
vailed) should have been at this time, as no 
way more in danger, so much more in quiet- 
ness; I would then have said, thai wisdom 
and virtue he the only destinies appointed to 



man to follow, whence we ought to seek all our 
knowledge, since they he such guides as cannol 
fail; which, besides their inward comfort, do 
lead so direct a way of proceeding, as either 
prosperity must ensue; or, if the wickedness of 
I he world should oppress il, il can never be 
said, that evil happeiiclh to him, who falls 
accompanied with virtue. I would then have 
said, (he heavenly powers to be reverenced, and 
not searched into ; and their mercies rather 
by prayers to be sought, than their hidden 
counsels by curiosily; these kind of sooth- 
sayers (since they ' have left us in ourselves 
sufficient guides) to be nothing but fancy, 
wherein there must either be vanity, or infalli- 
bleneSS, and so, either not to be respected, or 
not lo be prevented. But since il is weakness 
too much to remember what should have been 

done, and that your commandmenl stretcheth 

to know what is to be done, I do (most dear 
Lord) with humble boldness say, that the man 
mi of your determination doth in no sort better 
please me, than the cause of your going. These 
thirty years you have so governed this region, 
thai neither your subjects have wanted justice 
in you, nor you obedience in them; and your 
neighbours have found you so hurtlcssly - 
strong, that they thought it heller lo rest in 
your friendship, than make new trial of your 
enmity, [f this then have proceeded out of the 
good constitution of your slate, and out of a 
wise providence, generally to prevent all those 
things, which might encumber your happiness: 
why should you now seek new courses, since 
your own ensamplc comforts you to continue, 
and that it is lo me most certain (though il 
please you not to tell me the very words of the 
Oracle) thai vet no destiny, nor inlluencc 
whatsoever, can bring man's wil lo a higher 
point, than wisdom and goodness? Why 
should you deprive yourself of government, 
for fear of losing your government (like one 
thai should kill himself for fear of death)? 
Nay rather, if this Oracle be lo be accounted of, 
arm up your courage the more againsl it; for 
who will slick to him that abandons himself? 
Lei your subjects have you in their eyes; let 
them see the benefits of your justice daily more 
and more; and so must they needs rather like 
of present sureties than uncertain changes. 
Lastly, whether your time call you to live or 
die, do both like a prince.' Now for your 
second resolution ; which is, to suffer no worthy 



others 



the heavenly powers 2 not doing injury to 



5 a 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



prince to be ;i suitor to cither df your daughters, 
but while you live to keep them both unmar- 
ried; and, as it were, to kill the joy of pos- 
terity, which iu your time you may enjoy: 
moved perchance by a misunderstood Oracle: 
what shall 1 say, if the affection of a father 
to his own children, cannot plead sufficiently 
against such fancies? Once,' certain it is, the 
Cod which is Clod of nature doth never teach 
unnaturalness: and even the same mind hold 
1 touching your banishing them from company, 
lest 1 know not what strange loves should fol- 
low. Certainly, Sir, in my ladies, your daugh- 
ters, nature promiseth nothing hut goodness, 
and their education by your fatherly care hath 
keen hitherto such as hath keen most fit to 
restrain all evil: giving their minds virtuous 
delights, and not grieving them for want of 
well ruled liberty. Now to fall to a sudden 
straitening them, what can it <\o hut argue 
suspicion, a tiling no more unpleasant than 
unsure for the preserving of virtue? Leave 
women's minds the most untamed that way of 
any: see whether any cage can please a bird! 
or whether a dog grow not fiercer with tying! 
What doeth jealousy, but stir up the mind to 
think, what it is from which they are restrained? 
For they are treasures, or things of great de- 
light, which men use to hide, for the aptness 
they have to catch men's fancies: and the 
thoughts once awaked to that, harder sure it is 
to keep those thoughts from accomplishment, 
than it had keen before to have kept the mind 
(which being the chief part, by this means is 
defiled) from thinking. Lastly, for the recom- 
mending so principal a charge of the Princess 
Pamela, (whose mind goes heyond the govern- 
ing of many thousands such) to such a person 
as Pamctas is (besides that the thing in itself 
is strange) it comes of a very evil ground, that 
ignorance should be the mother of faithfulness. 
Oh, no; he cannot be good, that knows not why 
he is good, but stands so far good as his fortune 
may keep him unassayed: but coming once to 
that, his rude simplicity is either easily changed, 
or easily deceived: and so grows that to be the 
last excuse of his fault, which seemed to have 
been the first foundation of his faith. Thus 
far hath your commandment and my e.d 
drawn me; which 1, like a man in a valley that 
may discern hills, or like a poor passenger that 
may spy a rock, so humbly submit to your gra- 
cious consideration, beseeching you again, to 
stand wholly upon your own virtue, as the 



surest way to maintain you in that you are, 
and to avoid any evil which may be imagined.' 
"By the contents of this letter you may per- 
ceive, that the cause of all, hath been the van- 
ity which possessed! many, who (making a 
perpetual mansion of this poor baiting place 
of man's life) are desirous to know the certainty 
of things to come; wherein there is nothing 
so certain, as our continual uncertainty. But 
what in particular points the oracle was, in 
faith I know not: neither (as you may see by 
one place of Lhilanax's Utter) he himself dis- 
tinctly knew. But this experience shows us, 

that Basilius' judgment, corrupted with a 
prince's fortune, hath rather heard than fol- 
lowed the wise (as 1 take it) counsel of Phila- 
nax. Lor, having lost the stern ' of his gov- 
ernment, with much amazement to the people, 
among whom many strange bruits'-' are re- 
ceived for current, and with some appearance 
of danger in respect of the valiant Amphalus 
his nephew, and much envy in the ambitious 
number of the nobility against Philanax, to see 
Philana.x so advanced, though (to speak sim- 
ply) he deserve more than as many of us as 
there be in Arcadia: the prince himself hath 
hidden his head in such sort as I told you, not 
sticking' plainly to confess that he means not 
(while he breathes) that his daughters shall 
have any husband, but keep them thus solitary 
with him: where he gives no other body leave 
to visit him at any time, but a certain priest, 
who being excellent in poetry, he makes him 
write out such things as he best likes, he being 
no less delightful in conversation, than needful 
for devotion, and about twenty specified 
shepherds, in whom (some for exercises, 
and some for eclogues) he taketh greater 
recreation. 

'"And now you know as much as myself: 
wherein if 1 have held you over long, lay hardly 4 
the fault upon my old age, which in the very 
disposition of it is talkative: whether it be 
(said he smiling) that nature loves to exercise 
that part most, which is least decayed, and that 
is our tongue: or, that knowledge being the 
only thing whereof we poor old men can brag, 
we cannot make it known but by utterance; 
or, that mankind by all means seeking to 
eternise himself so much the more, as he is 
near his end, doeth it not only by the children 
that come of him, but by speeches and writings 
recommended to the memory of hearers and 
readers. And yet thus much I will say for 



1 in short 



1 rudder - rumors 3 hesitating * hardily 



ARCADIA 



53 



myself, thai I have not laid these matters, either 
so openly, or largely to any as yourself: 
so much (if I much fail not) do I see in 
you, which makes me both love and trust 
you." 

"Never may he lie old," answered Palladius, 
"that doeth noi reverence that age, whose 
heaviness, if it weigh down the frail and fleshly 
balance, it as much lifts up the noble and 
spiritual part: and well might you have alleged 
another reason, that their wisdom makes them 
willing to profit others. And that have I re- 
ceived of you, never to be forgotten, but with 
ungratefulness. Hut among many strange 
conceits you told me, which have showed effects 
in your prince, truly even the last, that he 
should conceive such pleasure in shepherds' 
discourses, would not seem the least unto me, 
saving that you told me at the first, that this 
country is notable in those wits, and that in- 
deed my self having been brought not only to 
this place, but to my life, by Strcphon and 
Claius, in their conference found wits as might 
better become such shepherds as Homer speaks 
of, that be governors of peoples, than such sena- 
tors who hold their council in a sheepcote." 
"for them two (said kakmder) especially 
Claius, they are beyond the rest by so much, 
as learning commonly doth add to nature: for, 
having neglected their wealth in respect of their 
knowledge, they have not so much impaired 
the meaner, as they bettered the better. Which 
all notwithstanding, it is a sport to hear 
how they impute to love, which hath indued 
their thoughts (say they) with such a 
strength. 

" but certainly, all the people of this country 
from high to low, is given to those sports of the 
wit, so as you would wonder to hear how soon 
even children will begin to versify. Once, 1 or- 
dinary it is among the meanest sort, to make 
songs and dialogues in meter, either love whet 
ting their brain, or long peace having begun it, 
example and emulation amending it. Not so 
much, but the clown Damelas will stumble 
sometimes upon some songs that might become 
a better brain: hut no sort of people so excel- 
lent in that kind as the pastors; for their living 
standing 1 ' but upon the looking to their beasts, 
liny have ease, the nurse of poetry. Neither 
are our shepherds such, as (I hear) they be in 
other countries; but they are the very owners 
of the sheep, to which either themselves look, 
or their children give daily attendance. And 

1 in short a depending 



then truly, it would delight you under some 
tree, or by some river's side (when two or three 
of them meet together) to hear their rural 
muse, how prettily it will deliver out, sometimes 
joys, sometimes lamentations, sometimes dial 
lengings one of the other, sometimes under 
hidden forms uttering such matters, as other- 
wise they durst not deal with. Then they 
have .most commonly one, who judgeth tin- 
prize to the best doer, of which they arc no less 
glad, than great princes are of triumphs: and 
his pari is to set down in writing all that is said, 
save that it may be, his pen with more leisure 
doth polish the rudeness of an unthought-on 
song. Now the choice of all (as you may well 
think) either for goodness of voice, or pleasant- 
ness of wit, the prince hath: among whom 
also there are two or three strangers, whom 
inward melancholies having made weary of the 
world's eyes, have come to spend their lives 
among the country people of Arcadia; and 
their conversation being well approved, the 
prince vouchsafeth them his presence, and not 
only by looking on, but by great courtesy and 
liberality, animates the shepherds the more 
exquisitely to labour for his good liking. So 
that there is no cause to blame the prince for 
sometimes hearing them; the blameworthiness 
is, that to hear them, he rather goes to solita- 
riness than makes them come to company. 
Neither do I accuse my master for advancing 
a countryman, as Dametas is, since God for- 
bid, but where worthiness is (as, truly, it is 
among divers of that fellowship) any outward 
lowness should hinder the highest raising; but 
that he would needs make election of one, the 
baseness of whose mind is such, that it sinks 
a thousand degrees lower than the basest body 
could carry the most base fortune: which 
although it might be answered for the prince, 
that it is rather a trust he hath in his simple 
plainness, than any great advancement, being 
but chief herdman; yet all honest hearts feel, 
that the trust of their lord goes beyond all 
advancement. But I am ever too long upon 
him, when he crosseth the way of my speech, 
and by the shadow of yonder tower, I see it is 
a fitter time, with our supper to pay the duties 
we owe to our stomachs, than to break the air 
with my idle discourses: and more wit I might 
have learned of Homer (whom even now you 
mentioned) who never entertained either guests 
or hosts with long speeches, till the mouth of 
hunger be thoroughly stopped." So withal 
he rose, leading Palladius through the garden 
again to the parlour, where they used to 



54 



RICHARD HOOKER 



sup; Palladius assuring him, that he had 
already been more fed to his liking, than he 
could be by the skilfullest trencher-men of 
Media. 



RICHARD HOOKER (i5S4?-i6oo) 

OF THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL 
POLITY 

From BOOK I 

Thus far therefore we have endeavoured in 
part to open, of what nature and force laws are, 
according unto their several kinds; the law 
which God with himself hath eternally set 
down to follow in his own works; the law 
which he hath made for his creatures to keep; 
the law of natural and necessary agents; the 
law which Angels in heaven obey; the law 
whereunto by the light of reason men find 
themselves bound in that they are men; the 
law which they make by composition for mul- 
titudes and politic societies of men to be guided 
by; the law which belongeth unto each nation ; 
the law that concerneth the fellowship of all; 
and lastly the law which God himself hath 
supernaturally revealed. It might peradven- 
ture have been more popular and more plaus- 
ible to vulgar ears, if this first discourse had 
been spent in extolling the force of laws, in 
showing the great necessity of them when they 
are good, and in aggravating their offence by 
whom public laws are injuriously traduced. 
But forasmuch as with such kind of matter 
the passions of men are rather stirred one way 
or other, than their knowledge any way set 
forward unto the trial of that whereof there 
is doubt made; I have therefore turned aside 
from that beaten path, and chosen though a 
less easy yet a more profitable way in regard 
of the end we propose. Lest therefore any 
man should marvel whereunto all these things 
tend, the drift and purpose of all is this, even 
to show in what manner, as every good and 
perfect gift, so this very gift of good and per- 
fect laws is derived from the Father of lights; 
to teach men a reason why just and reasonable 
laws are of so great force, of so great use in the 
world; and to inform their minds with some 
method of reducing the laws whereof there is 
present controversy unto their first original 
causes, that so it may be in every particular 
ordinance thereby the better discerned, whether 
the same be reasonable, just, and righteous, or 
no. Is there anything which can either be 



thoroughly understood or soundly judged of, 
till the very first causes and principles from 
which originally it springeth be made mani- 
fest? If all parts of knowledge have been 
thought by wise men to be then most orderly 
delivered and proceeded in, when they are 
drawn to their first original; seeing that our 
whole question concerneth the quality of eccle- 
siastical laws, let it not seem a labour super- 
fluous that in the entrance thereunto all these 
several kinds of laws have been considered, 
inasmuch as they all concur as principles, they 
all have their forcible operations therein, al- 
though not all in like apparent and manifest 
manner. By means whereof it cometh to pass 
that the force which they have is not observed 
of many. 

Easier a great deal it is for men by law to be 
taught what they ought to do, than instructed 
how to judge as they should do of law: the 
one being a thing which belongeth generally 
unto all, the other such as none but the wiser 
and more judicious sort can perform. Yea, 
the wisest are always, touching this point, the 
readiest to acknowledge that soundly to judge 
of a law is the weightiest thing which any man 
can take upon him. But if we will give judg- 
ment of the laws under which we live, first let 
that law eternal be always before our eyes, as' 
being of principal force and moment to breed 
in religious minds a dutiful estimation of all 
laws, the use and benefit whereof we see; 
because there can be no doubt but that laws 
apparently good are (as it were) things copied 
out of the very tables of that high everlasting 
law; even as the book of that law hath said 
concerning itself, "By me Kings reign, and by 
me Princes decree justice." Not as if men did 
behold that book and accordingly frame their 
laws; but because it worketh in them, because 
it discovereth and (as it were) readcth itself 
to the world by them, when the laws which 
they make are righteous. Furthermore, al- 
though we perceive not the goodness of laws 
made, nevertheless sith ' things in themselves 
may have that which we peradventure discern 
not, should not this breed a fear in our hearts, 
how we speak or judge in the worse part con- 
cerning that, the unadvised disgrace whereof 
may be no mean dishonour to Him, towards 
whom we profess all submission and awe? 
Surely there must be very manifest iniquity 
in laws, against which we shall be able to 
justify our contumelious invectives. The chief- 



OF THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY 



55 



est root whereof, when we use them without 
cause, is ignorance how laws inferior are de- 
rived from that supreme or highest law. 

The first that receive impression from thence 
are natural agents. The law of whose opera- 
tions might be haply thought less pertinent, 
when the question is about laws for human 
actions, but that in those very actions which 
most spiritually and supernaturally concern 
men the rules and axioms of natural operations 
have their force. What can be more immedi- 
ate to our salvation than our persuasion con- 
cerning the law of Christ towards his Church? 
What greater assurance of love towards his 
Church than the knowledge of that mystical 
union whereby the Church is become as near 
unto Christ as any one part of his flesh is unto 
other? That the Church being in such sort 
his he must needs protect it, what proof more 
strong than if a manifest law so require, which 
law it is not possible for Christ to violate? 
And what other law doth the Apostle for this 
allege, but such as is both common unto Christ 
with us, and unto us with other things natural? 
"No man hateth his own flesh, but doth love 
and cherish it." The axioms of that law there- 
fore, whereby natural agents are guided, have 
their use in the moral, yea, even in the spiritual 
actions of men, and consequently in all laws 
belonging unto men howsoever. 

Neither are the Angels themselves so far 
severed from us in their kind and manner of 
working, but that between the law of their 
heavenly operations and the actions of men 
in this our state of mortality such correspond- 
ence there is, as maketh it expedient to know 
in some sort the one for the other's more per- 
fect direction. Would Angels acknowledge 
themselves fellow-servants with the sons of 
men, but that, both having one Lord, there 
must be some kind of law which is one and the 
same to both, whereunto their obedience being 
perfecter is to our weaker both a pattern and 
a spur? Or would the Apostles, speaking of 
that which belongeth unto saints as they are 
linked together in the bond of spiritual society, 
so often make mention how Angels therewith 
are delighted, if in things publicly done by the 
Church we are not somewhat to respect what 
the Angels of heaven do ? Yea, so far hath the 
Apostle Saint Paul proceeded, as to signify 
that even about the outward orders of the 
Church which serve but for comeliness, some 
regard is to be had of Angels; who best like 
us when we are most like unto them in all 
parts of decent demeanour. So that the law 



of Angels we cannot judge altogether imper- 
tinent unto the affairs of the Church of God. 

Our largeness of speech how men do find 
out what things reason bindeth them of neces- 
sity to observe, and what it guideth them to 
choose in things which are left as arbitrary; 
the care we have had to declare the different 
nature of laws which severally concern all 
men, from such as belong unto men either civ- 
illy or spiritually associated, such as pertain 
to the fellowship which nations, or which 
Christian nations have amongst themselves, 
and in the last place such as concerning every 
or any of these God himself hath revealed by 
his holy word: all serveth but to make manifest, 
that as the actions of men are of sundry dis- 
tinct kinds, so the laws thereof must accord- 
ingly be distinguished. There are in men 
operations, some natural, some rational, some 
supernatural, some politic, some finally eccle- 
siastical: which if we measure not each by 
his own proper law, whereas the things them- 
selves are so different, there will be in our under- 
standing and judgment of them confusion. 

As that first error showeth, whereon our 
opposites in this cause have grounded them- 
selves. For as they rightly maintain that God 
must be glorified in all things, and that the 
actions of men cannot tend unto his glory un- 
less they be framed after his law; so it is their 
error to think that the only law which God 
hath appointed unto men in that behalf is 
the sacred scripture. By that which we work 
naturally, as when we breathe, sleep, move, 
we set forth the glory of God as natural agents 
do, albeit we have no express purpose to make 
that our end, nor any advised determination 
therein to follow a law, but do that we do (for 
the most part) not as much as thinking thereon. 
In reasonable and moral actions another law 
taketh place; law by the observation whereof 
we glorify God in such sort, as no creature else 
under man is able to do; because other crea- 
tures have not judgment to examine the quality 
of that which is done by them, and therefore 
in that they do they neither can accuse nor 
approve themselves. Men do both, as the 
Apostle teacheth; yea, those men which have 
no written law of God to show what is good or 
evil, carry written in their hearts the universal 
law of mankind, the law of reason, whereby 
they judge as by a rule which God hath given 
unto all men for that purpose. The law of 
reason doth somewhat direct men how to 
honour God as their creator; but how to glo- 
rify God in such sort as is required, to the 



56 



RICHARD HOOKER 



end he may be an everlasting saviour, this we 
are taught by divine law, which law both ascer- 
tained the truth and supplieth unto us the 
want of that other law. So that in moral ac- 
tions, divine law helpeth exceedingly the law 
of reason to guide man's life; but in supernat- 
ural it alone guideth. 

Proceed we further; let us place man in some 
public society with others, whether civil or 
spiritual; and in this case there is no remedy 
but we must add yet a further law. For al- 
though even here likewise the laws of nature 
and reason be of necessary use, yet somewhat 
over and besides them is necessary, namely, 
human and positive law, together with that law 
which is of commerce between grand societies, 
the law of nations, and of nations Christian. 
For which cause the law of God hath likewise 
said, "Let every soul be subject to the higher 
powers." The public power of all societies is 
above every soul contained in the same socie- 
ties. And the principal use of that power is 
to give laws unto all that are under it; which 
laws in such case we must obey, unless there be 
reason showed which may necessarily enforce 
that the law of reason or of God doth enjoin 
the contrary. Because except our own private 
and but probable resolutions be by the law of 
public determinations overruled, we take away 
all possibility of sociable life in the world. A 
plainer example whereof than ourselves we 
cannot have. How cometh it to pass that we 
are at this present day so rent with mutual 
contentions, and that the Church is so much 
troubled about the polity of the Church? No 
doubt if men had been willing to learn how 
many laws their actions in this life are subject 
unto, and what the true force of each law is, all 
these controversies might have died the very 
day they were first brought forth. 

It is both commonly said, and truly, that the 
best men otherwise are not always the best 
in regard of society. The reason whereof is, 
for that the law of men's actions is one, if they 
be respected only as men ; and another, when 
they are considered as parts of a politic body. 
Many men there are, than whom nothing is 
more commendable when they are singled; 
and yet in society with others none less fit to 
answer the duties which are looked for at their 
hands. Yea, I am persuaded, that of them 
with whom in this cause we strive, there are 
whose betters amongst men would be hardly 
found, if they did not live amongst men, but 
in some wilderness by themselves. The cause 
of which their disposition, so unframable unto 



societies wherein they live, is, for that they 
discern not aright what place and force these 
several kinds of laws ought to have in all their 
actions. Is their question either concerning 
the regiment ' of the Church in general, or 
about conformity between one church and 
another, or of ceremonies, offices, powers, 
jurisdictions in our own church? Of all these 
things they judge by that rule which they frame 
to themselves with some show of probability, 
and what seemeth in that sort convenient, the 
same they think themselves bound to practise; 
the same by all means fhey labour mightily 
to uphold; whatsoever any law of man to the 
contrary hath determined they weigh it not. 
Thus by following the law of private reason, 
where the law of public should take place, they 
breed disturbance. 

For the better inuring therefore of men's 
minds with the true distinction of laws, and of 
their several force according to the different 
kind and quality of our actions, it shall not per- 
adventure be amiss to show in some one exam- 
ple how they all take place. To seek no further, 
let but that be considered, than which there 
is not anything more familiar unto us, our food. 

What things are food and what are not we 
judge naturally by sense ; neither need we any 
other law to be our director in that behalf than the 
selfsame which is common unto us with beasts. 

But when we come to consider of food, as of 
a benefit which God of his bounteous goodness 
hath provided for all things living; the law of 
reason doth here require the duty of thankful- 
ness at our hands, towards him at whose hands 
we have it. And lest appetite in the use of 
food should lead us beyond that which is meet, 
we owe in this case obedience to that law of 
reason, which teacheth mediocrity in meats 
and drinks. The same things divine law teach- 
eth also, as at large we have showed it doth all 
parts of moral duty, whereunto we all of necessity 
stand bound, in regard of the life to come. 

But of certain kinds of food the Jews some- 
time had, and we ourselves likewise have, a 
mystical, religious, and supernatural use, they 
of their Paschal lamb and oblations, we of our 
bread and wine in the Eucharist; which use 
none but divine law could institute. 

Now as we live in civil society, the state of 
the commonwealth wherein we live both may 
and doth require certain laws concerning food; 
which laws, saving only that we are members 
of the commonwealth where they are of force, 

1 organization and government 



JOHN LYLY 



57 



we should not need to respect as rules of action, 
whereas now in their place and kind they must 
be respected and obeyed. 

Yea, the selfsame matter is also a subject 
wherein sometime ecclesiastical laws have 
place; so that unless we will be authors of 
confusion in the Church, our private discre- 
tion, which otherwise might guide us a con- 
trary way, must here submit itself to be that 
way guided, which the public judgment of 
the Church hath thought better. In which 
case that of Zonaras concerning fasts may be 
remembered, "Fastings are good, but let good 
things be done in good and convenient manner. 
He that transgresseth in his fasting the orders 
of the holy fathers, the positive laws of the 
Church of Christ, must be plainly told, that 
good things do lose the grace of their goodness, 
when in good sort they are not performed." 

And as here men's private fancies must give 
place to the higher judgment of that church 
which is in authority a mother over them; so 
the very actions of whole churches have, in 
regard of commerce and fellowship with other 
churches, been subject to laws concerning 
food, the contrary unto which laws had else 
been thought more convenient for them to 
observe; as by that order of abstinence from 
strangled and blood may appear; an order 
grounded upon that fellowship which the 
churches of the Gentiles had with the Jews. 

Thus we see how even one and the selfsame 
thing is under divers considerations conveyed 
through many laws; and that to measure by 
any one kind of law all the actions of men were 
to confound the admirable order wherein God 
hath disposed all laws, each as in nature, so in 
degree, distinct from other. 

Wherefore that here we may briefly end: of 
Law there can be no less acknowledged, than 
that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice 
the harmony. of the world; all things in heaven 
and earth do her homage, the very least as feel- 
ing her care, and the greatest as not exempted 
from her power; both Angels and men and 
creatures of what condition soever, though each 
in different sort and manner, yet all with uni- 
form consent, admiring her as the mother of 
their peace and joy. 

JOHN LYLY (1554-1606) 

From EUPHUES AND HIS ENGLAND 

"I perceive, Camilla, that be your cloth 
never so bad it will take some colour, and your 



cause never so false, it will bear some show of 
probability, wherein you manifest the right 
nature of a woman, who having no way to win, 
thinketh to overcome with words. This I 
gather by your answer, that beauty may have 
fair leaves, and foul fruit, that all that are ami- 
able are not honest, that love proceedeth of the 
woman's perfection, and the man's follies, that 
the trial looked for, is to perform whatsoever 
they promise, that in mind he be virtuous, in 
body comely, such a husband in my opinion is 
to be wished for, but not looked for. Take 
heed, Camilla, that seeking all the wood for 
a straight stick you choose not at the last 
a crooked staff, or prescribing a good counsel 
to others, thou thyself follow the worst : much 
like to Chius, who selling the best wine to others, 
drank himself of the lees." 

"Truly," quoth Camilla, "my wool was black, 
and therefore it could take no other colour, and 
my cause good, and therefore admitteth no cavil : 
as for the rules I set down of love, they were not 
coined of me, but learned, and, being so true, 
believed. If my fortune be so ill that, search- 
ing for a wand, I gather a cammock, 1 or, selling 
wine to other, I drink vinegar myself, I must 
be content, that of the worst, poor help, pa- 
tience, 2 which by so much the more is to be 
borne, by how much the more it is perforce." 

As Surius was speaking, the Lady Flavia 
prevented him, saying, "It is time that you 
break off your speech, lest we have nothing to 
speak, for should you wade any farther, you 
would both waste the night and leave us no 
time, and take our reasons, and leave us no 
matter; that every one therefore may say 
somewhat, we command you to cease ; that you 
have both said so well, we give you thanks." 
Thus letting Surius and Camilla to whisper by 
themselves (whose talk we will not hear) the 
lady began in this manner to greet Martius. 

"We see, Martius, that where young folks 
are, they treat of love, when soldiers meet, 
they confer of war, painters of their colours, 
musicians of their crochets, and every one 
talketh of that most he liketh best. Which 
seeing it is so, it behooveth us that have more 
years, to have more wisdom, not to measure our 
talk by the affections we have had, but by 
those we should have. 

"In this therefore I would know thy mind 
whether it be convenient for women to haunt 
such places where gentlemen are, or for men 

1 crooked stick 2 = with the only contentment 
possible at the worst, the poor help patience 



58 



JOHN LYLY 



to have access to gentlewomen, which me- 
thinketh in reason cannot he tolerable, knowing 
that there IS nothing more pernicious to either, 
than love, and that love breedeth by nothing 
sooner than looks. They that fear water, will 
come near no wells, they that stand in dread 
of 1 turning, fly from the tire: and ought not 
they that would not he entangled with desire 
to refrain company? If love have the pangs 
which the passionate set down, why do they 
not abstain from the cause? If it be pleasant 
why di^ they dispraise it ? 

"We shun the place of pestilence for fear of 

infection, the eves of Catoblepas 1 because of 

diseases, the sight of the basilisk for dread of 
death, and shall we not eschew tin- company 
of them that may entrap us in love, which is 
more hitter than any destruction? 

"If we fly thieves that steal our goods, shall 
we follow murderers that cut our throats? 
If we he heedy • to come where wasps he, lest 
we he stung, shall we hazard to run where 
Cupid is, where we shall be stilled? Truly, 
Martins, in my opinion there is nothing either 
more repugnant to reason, or abhorring from 
nature, than to seek that we should shun, 
leaving the clear stream to drink of the muddy 
ditch, or in the extremity of heat to lie in the 
parching sun, when he may sleep in the cold 
shadow, or, being free from fancy, to seek after 
love, which is as much as to cool a hot liver 
with strong wine, or to cure a weak stomach 
with raw flesh. In this 1 would hear thy 
sentence, induced the rather to this discourse, 
for that Surius and Camilla have begun it, 
than that 1 like it : love in me hath neither power 
to command, nor persuasion to entreat. Which 
how idle a thing it is, and how pestilent to youth, 
1 partly know, and you I am sure can guess." 

Martins not very young to discourse of these 
matters, vet desirous to utter his mind, whether 
it were to flatter Surius in his will, or to make 
trial of the lady's wit: began thus to frame 
his answer: 

"Madam, there is in Chio the Image of 
Diana, which to those that enter seemeth sharp 
and sour, but returning after their suits made, 
looketh with a merry and pleasant countenance. 
And it may be that at the entrance of my dis- 
course ye will bend your brows as one dis- 
pleased, but hearing my proof, be delighted 
and satisfied. 

"The question you move, is whether it be 
requisite, that gentlemen and gentlewomen 

1 a fabulous animal ■ hcadful 



should meet. Truly among lovers it is con- 
venient to augment desire, amongst those that 
are firm, necessary to maintain society. For 
to take away all meeting for fear of love, were 
to kindle amongst all, the fire of hate. There 
is greater danger, Madam, by absence, which 
breedeth melancholy, than by presence, which 
engendereth affection. 

"If the sight be so perilous, that the com- 
pany should be barred, why then admit you 
those to see banquets that may thereby surfeit, 
or suffer them to eat their meat by a candle 
that have sore eyes? To be separated from 
one I love, would make me more constant, and 
to keep company with her I love not, would 
not kindle desire. Love cometh as well in at 
the ears, by the report of good conditions, as 
in at the eyes by the amiable countenance, 
which is the cause, that divers have loved 
those they never saw, and seen those they 
never loved. 

"You allege that those that fear drowning, 
come near no wells, nor they that dread burn- 
ing, near no fire. Why then, let them stand in 
doubt also to wash their hands in a shallow- 
brook, for that Serapus falling into a channel 
was drowned: and let him that is cold never 
warm his hands, for that a spark fell into the 
eyes of Actine, whereof she died. Let none 
come into the company of women, for that 
divers have been allured to love, and being 
refused, have used violence to themselves. 

"bet this be set down for a law, that none 
walk abroad in the day but men, lest meeting 
a beautiful woman, he fall in love, and lose his 
liberty. 

"I think, 'Madam, you will not be so precise, 
to cut off all conference, because love cometh 
by often communication, which if you do, let 
us all now presently depart, lest in seeing the 
beauty which dazzleth our eyes, and hearing 
the wisdom which tickleth our ears, we be en 
tlamed with love. 

"But you shall never beat the fly from the 
candle though he burn, nor the quail from 
hemlock though it be poison, nor the lover 
from the company of his lady though it be 
perilous. 

"It falleth out sundry times, that company 
is the cause to shake off love, working the 
effects of the root rhubarb, which being full of 
choler, purgeth choler, or of the scorpion's sting, 
which being full of poison, is a remedy for 
poison. 

"But this I conclude, that to bar one that is 
in love of the company of his lady, maketh him 



EUPHUES AND HIS ENGLAND 



59 



rather mad, than mortified, for him to refrain 
that never knew love, is either to suspect him 
of folly without cause, or the next way for him 
to fall into folly when he knoweth the cause. 

"A lover is like the herb heliotropium, which 
always inclineth to that place where the sun 
shineth, and being deprived of the sun, dielh. 
For as lunaris herb, as long as the moon 
waxclh, bringeth forth leaves, and in the wan- 
ing shaketh them off: so a lover whilst he is in 
the company of his lady, where all joys increase, 
uttereth many pleasant conceits, but banished 
from the sight of his mistress, where all mirth 
decreaseth, either liveth in melancholy, or 
dielh with desperation." 

The Lady Flavia speaking in his cast, 1 
proceeded in this manner: 

"Truly, Martius, I had not thought that as 
yet your colt's tooth stuck in your mouth, or 
that so old a truant in love, could hitherto 
remember his lesson. You seem not to infer 
that it is requisite they should meet, but being 
in love that it is convenient, lest, falling into a 
mad mood, they pine in their own peevishness. 
Why then let it follow, that the drunkard which 
surfeiteth with wine be always quaffing, because 
he liketh it, or the epicure which glutteth him- 
self with meat be ever eating, for that it con- 
tenteth him, not seeking at any time the means 
to redress their vices, but to renew them. 
But it fareth with the lover as it doth with him 
that poureth in much wine, who is ever more 
thirsty, than he that drinkcth moderately, 
for having once tasted the delights of love, he 
desireth most the thing that hurteth him most, 
not laying a plaster to the wound, but a cor- 
rosive. 

" 1 am of this mind, that if it be dangerous, 
to lay flax to the lire, salt to the eyes, sulphur 
to the nose, that then it cannot be but perilous 
to let one lover come in presence of the other." 
Surius overhearing the lady, and seeing her so 
earnest, although he were more earnest in his 
suit to Camilla, cut her off with these words: 

"Good Madam, give me leave either to 
depart, or to speak, for in truth you gall me 
more with these terms, than you wist, 2 in seem- 
ing to inveigh so bitterly against the meeting 
of lovers, which is the only marrow of love, 
and though I doubt not but that Martius is 
sufficiently armed to answer you, yet would 
I not have those reasons refelled, 3 which 
I loathe to have repealed. It may be you utter 
them not of malice you bear to love, but only 



to move controversy where there is no question: 
for if thou envy to have lovers meet, why did 
you grant us; if allow it, why seek you to sepa- 
rate us?" 

The good lady could not refrain from 
laughter, when she saw Surius so angry, who 
in the midst of his own tale, was troubled with 
hers, whom she thus again answered. 

"I cry you mercy, 1 gentleman, I had not 
thought to have catched you, when I fished for 
another, but I perceive now that with one bean 
it is easy to get two pigeons, and with one bait 
to have divers bites. I sec that others may 
guess where the shoe wrings, besides him that 
wears it." "Madam," quoth Surius, "you 
have caught a frog, if I be not deceived, and 
therefore as good it were not to hurt him, as 
not to eat him, but if all this while you angled 
to have a bite at a lover, you should have used 
no bitter medicines, but pleasant bails." 

"I cannot tell," answered Flavia, "whether 
my bait were bitter or not, but sure I am I 
have the fish by the gill, that doth me good." 
Camilla not thinking to be silent, put in her 
spoke as she thought into the best wheel, 
saying, 

"Lady, your cunning may deceive you in 
fishing with an angle, therefore to catch him 
you would have, you were best to use a net." 
"A net!" quoth Flavia, "I need none, for my 
fish playeth in a net already." With that 
Surius began to wince, replying immediately, 
"So doth many a fish, good lady, that slippeth 
out, when the fisher thinketh him fast in, and 
it may be, that either your net is too weak to 
hold him, or your hand too wet." "A wet 
hand," quoth flavia, "will hold a dead her- 
ring:" "Aye," quoth Surius, "but eels are no 
herrings." "But lovers are," said Flavia. 

Surius not willing to have the grass mown, 
whereof he meant to make his hay, began thus 
to conclude: 

"Good Lady, leave off fishing for this time, 
and though it be Lent, rather break a statute 
which is but penal, than sew 2 a pond that may 
be perpetual." "I am content," quoth Flavia, 
"rather to fast for once, than to want a pleasure 
forever: yet, Surius, betwixt us two, I will at 
large prove, that there is nothing in love more 
venomous than meeting, which filleth the mind 
with grief and the body with diseases: for hav- 
ing the one, he cannot fail of the other. But 
now, Philautus and niece Francis, since I 
am cut off, begin you: but be short, because 



Style, manner 2 know 



; refuted 



1 I beg your pardon 2 drain, empty 



6o 



THOMAS LODGE 



the time is short, and that I was more short 
than I would." 

THOMAS LODGE (i5s8?-i62s) 

From ROSALYNDE: EUPHUES' GOLDEN 
LEGACY 

They came no sooner nigh the folds, but they 
might see where their discontented forester 
was walking in his melancholy. As soon as 
Aliena saw him, she smiled, and said to Gani- 
mede: "Wipe your eyes, sweeting, for yonder 
is your sweetheart this morning in deep prayers 
no doubt to Venus, that she may make you as 
pitiful as he is passionate. Come on, Gani- 
mede, I pray thee let's have a little sport with 
him." "Content," quoth Ganimede, and with 
that, to waken him out of his deep memento, 1 
he 2 began thus: 

"Forester, good fortune to thy thoughts, 
and ease to thy passions! What makes you 
SO early abroad this morn, in contemplation, 
no doubt, of your Rosalynde? Take heed, 
forester, step not too far ; the ford may be deep, 
and you slip over the shoes. I tell thee, flies 
have their spleen, the ants choler, the least 
hairs shadows, and the smallest loves great 
desires. 'Tis good, forester, to love, but not 
to ovcrlove, lest, in loving her that likes not 
thee, thou fold thyself in an endless labyrinth." 
Rosader seeing the fair shepherdess and her 
pretty swain, in whose company he felt the 
greatest ease of his care, he returned them a 
salute on this manner: 

"Gentle shepherds, all hail, and as healthful 
be your flocks as you happy in content. Love 
is restless, and my bed is but the cell of my bane, 
in that there I find busy thoughts and broken 
slumbers. Here, although everywhere pas- 
sionate,' yet I brook love with more patience, in 
that every object feeds mine eye with variety 
of fancies. When I look on Flora's beauteous 
tapestry, checkered with the pride of all her 
treasure, I call to mind the fair face of Rosa- 
lynde, whose heavenly hue exceeds the rose and 
the lily in their highest excellence. The bright- 
ness of Phoebus' shine puts me in mind to think 
of the sparkling flames that Hew from her eyes 
and set my heart first on tire; the sweet har- 
monie of the birds puts me in remembrance 
of the rare melody of her voice, which like the 
Syren enehanteth the ears of the hearer. Thus 
in eontemplation I salve my sorrows, with 
applying the perfection of every object to the 
excellence of her qualities." 

1 meditation : he = Rosalynde disguised as Gani- 
mede 3 troubled 



"She is much beholding unto you," quoth 
Aliena, "and so much that I have oft wished 
with myself that if I should ever prove as 
amorous as (Enone, I might find as faithful a 
Paris as yourself." 

"How say you by this Item, forester?" quoth 
Ganimede. " The fair shepherdess favours 
you, who is mistress of so many flocks. Leave 
off, man, the supposition of Rosalynde's love, 
whenas, watching at her, you rove beyond the 
moon; and cast your looks upon my mistress, 
who no doubt is as fair though not so royal. 
One bird in the hand is worth two in the wood; 
better possess the love of Aliena, than catch 
frivolously at the shadow of Rosalynde." 

"I'll tell thee, boy," quoth Ganimede; "so 
is my fancy fixed on my Rosalynde, that were 
thy mistress as fair as Leda or Danae, whom 
Jove courted in transformed shapes, mine eyes 
would not vouch 1 to entertain their beauties; 
and so hath Love locked me in her perfections, 
that I had rather only contemplate in her 
beauties, than absolutely possess the excellence 
of any other. Venus is to blame, forester, 
if, having so true a servant of you, she reward 
you not with Rosalynde, if Rosalynde were 
more fairer than herself. But leaving this 
prattle, now I'll put you in mind of your 
promise, about those sonnets which you said 
were at home in your lodge." "I have them 
about me," quoth Rosader; "let us sit down, 
and then you shall hear what a poetical fury 
Love will infuse into a man." With that 
they sat down upon a green bank shadowed 
with tig trees, and Rosader, fetching a deep sigh, 
read them this sonnet: 

Rosader's Sonnet 

In sorrow's cell I laid me down to sleep, 
But waking woes were jealous of mine eyes. 
They made them watch, and bend themselves 

to weep; 
But weeping tears their want could not suffice. 
Yet since for her they wept who guides my 

heart, 
Thev, weeping, smile and triumph in their 
smart. 

Of these my tears a fountain fiercely springs. 

Where Venus bains : herself incensed with love; 

Where Cupid boweth his fair feathered wings. 

But I behold what pains I must approve. 
Care drinks it dry; but when on her I think, 
Love makes me weep it full unto the brink. 



1 condescend 



2 bathes 



ROSALYNDE 



61 



Meanwhile my sighs yield truce unto my tears, 
By them the winds increased and fiercely 

blow; 

Yet when I sigh, the flame more plain appears, 

And by their force with greater power doth glow. 

Amidst these pains all Phccnix-likc I thrive, 

Since Love that yields me death may life 

revive. 

Rosader, en espc ranee. 1 

"Now surely, forester," quoth Aliena, 
"when thou madest this sonnet, thou wert in 
some amorous quandary, neither too fearful, 
as despairing of thy mistress' favours, nor too 
gleesome, as hoping in thy fortunes." "I 
can smile," quoth Ganimede, "at the sonettoes, 
canzones, madrigals, rounds and roundelays, 
that these pensive patients pour out, when 
their eyes are more full of wantonness than 
their hearts of passions. Then, as the fishers 
put the sweetest bait to the fairest fish, so these 
Ovidians, 1 holding Amo in their tongues, 
when their thoughts come at haphazard, write 
that they be wrapped in an endless labyrinth 
of sorrow, when, walking in the large lease 
of liberty, they only have their humours in their 
inkpot. If they find women so fond, 2 that they 
will with such painted lures come to their lust, 
then they triumph till they be full gorged with 
pleasures ; and then fly they away, like ramage 
kites, to their own content, leaving the tame 
fool, their mistress, full of fancy, yet without 
ever a feather. If they miss (as dealing with 
some wary wanton, that wants not such a one as 
themselves, but spies their subtilly), they end 
their amours with a few feigned sighs; and so 
their excuse is, their mistress is cruel, and they 
smother passions with patience. Such, gentle 
forester, we may deem you to be, that rather 
pass away the time here in these woods with 
writing amorets, than to be deeply enamoured, 
as you say, of your Rosalynde. If you be such 
a one, then I pray God, when you think your 
fortunes at the highest, and your desires to be 
most excellent, then that you may with Ixion 
embrace Juno in a cloud, and have nothing 
but a marble mistress to release your martyr- 
dom ; but if you be true and trusty, eye-pained 
and heart-sick, then accursed be Rosalynde 
if she prove cruel; for, forester, (I flatter not) 
thou art worthy of as fair as she." Aliena, 
spying the storm by the wind, smiled to see 
how Ganimede flew to the fist without any 
call; but Rosader, who took him flat for a 
shepherd's swain, made him this answer. 

1 devotees of Ovid's Art of Love 2 foolish 



"Trust me, swain," quoth Rosader, "but 
my canzon 1 was written in no such humour; 
for mine eye and my heart are relatives, the 
one drawing fancy 2 by sight, the other enter- 
taining her by sorrow. If thou sawest my 
Rosalynde, with what beauties Nature hath 
favoured her, with what perfection the heavens 
hath graced her, with what qualities the Gods 
have endued her, then wouldst thou say, there 
is none so fickle that could be fleeting unto her. 
If she had been Eneas' Dido, had Venus and 
Juno both scolded him from Carthage, yet 
her excellence, despite of them, would have 
detained him at Tyre. If Phyllis had been as 
beauteous, or Ariadne as virtuous, or both as 
honourable and excellent as she, neither had 
the philbert tree sorrowed in the death of 
despairing Phyllis, nor the stars have been 
graced with Ariadne, but Demophon and 
Theseus had been trusty to their paragons. 
I will tell thee, swain, if with a deep insight 
thou couldst pierce into the secret of my loves, 
and see what deep impressions of her idea 
affection hath made in my heart, then wouldst 
thou confess I were passing passionate, and 
no less endued with admirable patience." 
"Why, " quoth Aliena, " needs there patience in 
Love?" "Or else in nothing," quoth Rosader; 
" for it is a restless sore that hath no ease, a can- 
ker that still frets, a disease that taketh away 
all hope of sleep. If, then, so many sorrows, 
sudden joys, momentary pleasures, continual 
fears, daily griefs, and nightly woes be found in 
love, then is not he to be accounted patient, 
that smothers all these passions with silence?" 
"Thou speakest by experience," quoth Gani- 
mede, "and therefore we hold all thy words 
for axioms. But is love such a lingering 
malady?" "It is," quoth he, "cither extreme 
or mean, according to the mind of the party 
that entertains it; for as the weeds grow longer 
untouched than the pretty flowers, and the flint 
lies safe in the quarry, when the emerald is 
suffering the lapidary's tool, so mean men are 
freed from Venus' injuries, when kings are 
environed with a labyrinth of her cares. The 
whiter the lawn is the deeper is the mole, the 
more purer the chrysolite the sooner stained; 
and such as have their hearts full of honour, 
have their loves full of the greatest sorrows. 
But in whomsoever," quoth Rosader, " he fixeth 
his dart, he never leaveth to assault him, till 
either he hath won him to folly or fancy; for 
as the moon never goes without the star Luni- 
sequa, 3 so a lover never goeth without the unrest 

1 a kind of song 2 love 3 Moon-follower 



62 



THOMAS LODGE 



of his thoughts. For proof you shall hear 

another fancy of my making." "Now do, 
gentle forester," quoth Ganimede. And with 

that lie read over this sonelio: 

Rosader's Second Sonetto 

Turn I my looks unto the skies, 

Love with his arrows wounds mine eyes; 

If so 1 gaze upon the ground. 

Love then in every flower is found; 

Search 1 the shade to fly my pain, 

lie meets me in the shade again; 

Wend 1 to walk in secret grove. 

Even there 1 meet with sacred Love; 

If so I bain ' me in the spring, 

Even on the brink I hear him sing; 

If so 1 meditate alone, 

lie will be partner of my moan; 

If SO 1 mourn, he weeps with me; 

And where I am, there will he be, 

Whenas 1 talk of Rosalynde, 

The God from coyness waxeth kind, 

And seems in selfsame flames to fry, 

Because he loves as well as 1. 

Sweet Rosalynde, for pity rue, 

For-why 1 than Love 1 am more true; 

He, if he speed 3 will quickly fly, 

But in thy love I live and die. 

" How like you this sonnet ? " quoth Rosader. 
" Marry," quoth Ganimede, "for the pen well, 
for the passion ill; for, as 1 praise the one, I 
pity the other, in that thou shouldest hunt after 
a cloud, ami love either without reward or 
regard." " "bis not her frowardness," quoth 
Rosader, "but my hard fortunes, whose des- 
tinies have crossed me with her absence; 
for did she feel my loves, she would not let 
me linger in these sorrows. Women, as they 
are fair, so they respect faith, and estimate 
more, if they be honourable, the will than the 
wealth, having loyalty the object whereat they 
aim their fancies. But, leaving off these inter- 
parleys, you shall hear my last sonetto, and 
then you have heard all my poetry." And with 
that he sighed out this: 

Rosader's Third Sonnet 

Of virtuous love myself may boast alone, 
Since no suspect my service may attaint; 
For perfect fair ' she is the only one, 
Whom I esteem for my beloved Saint. 
Thus for my faith 1 only bear the bell, 8 
And for her fair 4 she only doth excell. 

1 bathe - because s succeed 4 beauty B excel all 



Then let fond ' Petrarch shroud 2 his Laura's 

praise, 
Anil Tasso cease to publish his affect, 3 
Since mine the faith confirmed at all assays, 
And hers the fair ' which all men do respect. 

My lines her fair, her fair my faith assures; 

Thus I by Love, and Love by me endures. 

"Thus," quoth Rosader. "here is an end of 
my poems, but for all this no release of my 
passions; so that T resemble him that in the 
depth of his distress hath none but the Echo 
to answer him." Ganimede, pitying her 
Rosader, thinking to drive him out of this 
amorous melancholy, said that "Now the sun 
was in his meridional heat, and that it was 
high noon, therefore we shepherds say, 'tis 
time to go to dinner: for the sun and our 
stomachs, are shepherd's dials. Therefore, 
forester, if thou wilt take such fare as conies 
out of our homely scrips, welcome shall answer 
whatsoever thou wantest in delicates." Aliens 
took the entertainment by the end, and told 
Rosader he should be her guest. He thanked 
them heartily, and sat with them down to din- 
ner: where they had such cates' as country 
state did allow them, sauced with such content 
and such sweet prattle as it seemed far more 
sweet than all their courtly junkets. 

As soon as they had taken their repast, 
Rosader giving them thanks for his good cheer, 
would have been gone; but Ganimede, that 
was loath to let him pass out of her presence, 
began thus: "Nay, forester," quoth he, "if 
thy business be not the greater, seeing thou 
sayest thou art so deeply in love, let me see 
how thou canst woo. I will represent Rosa- 
lynde, and thou shah be, as thou art, Rosader. 
See in some amorous Eglogue, how if Rosa- 
lynde were present, how thou couldst court 
her; and while we sing of love. Aliens shall 
tune her pipe, and play us melody." "Con- 
tent." quoth Rosader. And Aliena, she to 
show her willingness, drew forth a recorder, 
and began to wind 7 it. Then the loving for- 
ester began thus: 

The Wooing Eglogve betwixt Rosalynde 
and Rosader 

Rosader 
I pray thee. Nymph, by all the working words, 
By all the tears and sighs that lovers know. 
Or what or thoughts or faltering tongue affords, 
1 crave for mine in ripping up my woe. 



1 foolish 
6 delieaeies 



cover up s love 4 beauty ■ cakes 
blow 



ROSALYNDE 



63 



Sweet Rosalynde, my love (would God my 

love !), 
My life (would God my life!), ay pity me; 
Thy lips are kind, and humble like the dove, 
And but with beauty pity will not be. 
Look on mine eyes, made red with rueful tears, 
From whence the rain of true remorse de- 

scendeth, 
All pale in looks, and I though young in years, 
And nought but love or death my days be- 

friendeth. 
Oh, let no stormy rigour knit thy brows, 
Which Love appointed for his mercy-seat! 
The tallest tree by Boreas' breath it bows, 
The iron yields with hammer, and to heat; 

Rosalynde, then be thou pitiful ; 
For Rosalynde is only beautiful. 

Rosalynde 

Love's wantons arm their trait'rous suits with 

tears, 
With vows, with oaths, with looks, with 

showers of gold; 
But when the fruit of their affects ' appears, 
The simple heart by subtil sleights is sold. 
Thus sucks the yielding ear the poisoned bait, 
Thus feeds the heart upon his endless harms, 
Thus glut the thoughts themselves on self- 
deceit, 
Thus blind the eyes their sight by subtil charms. 
The lovely looks, the sighs that storm so sore, 
The dew of deep dissembled doubleness, — 
These may attempt, but are of power no more, 
Where beauty leans to wit and soothfastness. 2 
O Rosader, then be thou wittiful; 
For Rosalynde scorns foolish pitiful. 

Rosader 

I pray thee, Rosalynde, by those sweet eyes 
That stain s the sun in shine, the morn in 

clear; 4 
By those sweet checks where Love encamped 

lies 
To kiss the roses of the springing year; 
1 tempt thee, Rosalynde, by ruthful plaints, 
Not seasoned with deceit or fraudful guile, 
But firm in pain, far more than tongue depaints, 
Sweet nymph, be kind, and grace me with a 

smile. 
So may the heavens preserve from hurtful 

food 
Thy harmless flocks, so may the summer yield 
The pride of all her riches and her good, 
To fat thy sheep, the citizens of field. 

1 affections 2 truth 3 excel 4 clearness 



Oh, leave to arm thy lovely brows with scorn ! 
The birds their beak, the lion hath his tail; 
And lovers nought but sighs and bitter mourn, 1 
The spotless fort of fancy 2 to assail. 

O Rosalynde, then be thou pitiful; 

For Rosalynde is only beautiful. 

Rosalynde 
The hardened steel by fire is brought in frame: 

Rosader 

And Rosalynde my love than any wool more 

softer; 
And shall not sighs her tender heart enflame? 

Rosalynde 

Were lovers true, maids would believe them 
ofter. 

Rosader 
Truth and regard and honour guide my love ! 

Rosalynde 
Fain would I trust, but yet I dare not try. 

Rosader 
Oh, pity me, sweet Nymph, and do but prove. 

Rosalynde 
I would resist, but yet I know not why. 

Rosader 

O Rosalynde, be kind, for times will change; 
Thy looks aye nill 3 be fair as now they be, 
Thine age from beauty may thy looks estrange: 
Ah, yield in time, sweet Nymph, and pity me. 

Rosalynde 

O Rosalynde, thou must be pitiful ; 
For Ro$ader is young and beautiful. 

Rosader 

Oh, gain more great than kingdoms or a crown ! 

Rosalynde 
Oh, trust betrayed if Rosader abuse me! 



1 mourning 



love 



3 will not 



64 



ROBERT GREENE 



Rosader 

First let the heavens conspire to pull me down, 
And heaven and earth as abject quite refuse 

me; 
Let sorrows stream about my hateful bower, 
And restless horror hatch within my breast; 
Let beauty's eye afflict me with a lour; 
Let deep despair pursue me without rest; 
Ere Rosalynde my loyalty disprove, 
Ere Rosalynde accuse me for unkind. 

Rosalynde 

Then Rosalynde will grace thee with her love, 
Then Rosalynde will have thee still in mind. 

Rosa tier 

Then let me triumph more than Tithon's 

dear, 
Since Rosalynde will Rosader respect: 
Then let my face exile his sorry cheer, 
And frolic in the comfort of affect; 1 
And say that Rosalynde is only pitiful, 
Since Rosalynde is only beautiful. 

When thus they had finished their courting 
eglogue in such a familiar clause, 2 Ganimcde as 
augur of some good fortunes to light upon their 
affections, began to be thus pleasant: "How 
now, forester, have I not fitted your turn? 
Have I not played the woman handsomelv, and 
showed myself as coy in grants, as courteous in 
desires, and been as full of suspicion as men of 
flattery? And yet to salve all, jumped 3 I not 
all up with the sweet union of love? Did not 
Rosalynde content her Rosader?" The for- 
ester at this smiling, shook, his head, and folding 
his anus made this merry reply: 

"Truth, gentle swain, Rosader hath his 
Rosalynde; but as Ixion had Juno, who. 
thinking to possess a goddess, only embraced a 
cloud. In these imaginary fruitions of fancy, 
I resemble the birds that fed themselves with 
Zeuxis' painted grapes; but they grew so lean 
with pecking at shadows that they were glad 
with .Esop's cock to scrape for a barley cornel; 4 
so fareth it with me, who to feed myself with the 
hope of my mistress' favours, soothe" myself in 
thy suits, and only in conceit reap a wished-for 
content. But if my food be no better than such 
amorous dreams, Venus at the year's end shall 
find me but a lean lover. Yet do I take these 
follies for high fortunes, and hope these feigned 
affections do divine some unfeigned end of 
ensuing fancies." "And thereupon," quoth 

1 love 2 expression 8 closed * kernel 



Aliena, "I'll play the priest. From this day 
forth Ganimede shall call thee husband, and 
thou shalt call Ganimede wife, and so we'll 
have a marriage." "Content," quoth Rosader, 
and laughed. "Content," quoth Ganimede, 
and changed as red as a rose. And so with a 
smile and a blush they made up this jesting 
match, that after proved to a marriage in ear- 
nest; Rosader full little thinking he had wooed 
and won his Rosalynde. . . . 



ROBERT GREENE (i56o?-i5 9 2) 

From A GROAT'S WORTH OF WIT, BOUGHT 
WITH A MILLION OF REPENTANCE 

On the other side of the hedge sat one that 
heard his sorrow, who getting over, came tow- 
ards him, and brake off his passion. When 
he approached, he saluted Roberto in this sort. 

"Gentleman," quoth he, "(for so you seem) 
I have by chance heard you discourse some part 
of your grief; which appeareth to be more than 
you will discover, or I can conceit. 1 But if 
you vouchsafe 2 such simple comfort as my 
ability will yield, assure yourself that I will en- 
deavour to do the best, that either may pro- 
cure your profit, or bring you pleasure: the 
rather, for that I suppose you are a scholar, 
and pitv it is men of learning should live in 
lack." 

Roberto wondering to hear such good words, 
for that this iron age affords few that esteem 
of virtue, returned him thankful gratulations, 
and (urged by necessity) uttered his present 
grief, beseeching his advice how he might be 
employed. "Why, easily," quoth he, "and 
greatly to your benefit: for men of my profes- 
sion get by scholars their whole living." " What 
is your profession?" said Roberto. "Truly, 
sir," said he, "I am a player." "A player," 
quoth Roberto, "I took you rather for a gen- 
tleman of great living, for if by outward habit 
men should be censured, I tell you you would be 
taken for a substantial man." " So am I, where 
I dwell (quoth the player), reputed able at my 
proper cost to build a windmill. What though 
the world once went hard with me, when I 
was fain to carry my playing fardel a footback ; 
Tempora mutantur, 3 1 know you know the mean- 
ing of it better than I, but I thus construe 
it; it is otherwise now; for my very share in 
playing apparel will not be sold for two hun- 
dred pounds." "Truly (said Roberto) it is 

1 conceive 2 condescend to accept 3 times change 






A GROAT'S WORTH OF WIT 



65 



strange, that you should so prosper in that vain 
practice, for that it seems to me your voice 
is nothing gracious." "Nay then," said the 
player, "I mislike your judgment: why, I am 
as famous for Delphrigus, and the King of 
Fairies, as ever was any of my time. The 
Twelve Labours of Hercules have I terribly 
thundered on the stage, and placed three scenes 
of the Devil on the Highway to Heaven." "Have 
ye so? (said Roberto) then I pray you pardon 
me." "Nay, more (quoth the player), I can 
serve to make a pretty speech, for I was a 
country author; passing at a moral, 1 for it was 
I that penned the Moral of Man's Wit, the 
Dialogue of Dives, and for seven years space 
was absolute interpreter of the puppets. But 
now my almanac is out of date. 

The people make no estimation, 
Of Morals teaching education. 

Was not this pretty for a plain rhyme ex- 
tempore? if ye will, ye shall have more." 
"Nay it is enough," said Roberto, "but how 
mean you to use me?" "Why sir, in making 
plays," said the other, "for which you shall be 
well paid, if you will take the pains." 

Roberto perceiving no remedy, thought best 
in respect of his present necessity, to try his 
wit, and went with him willingly: who lodged 
him at the town's end in a house of retail, 
where what happened our poet you shall here- 
after hear. There, by conversing with bad 
company, he grew A malo in peius, 2 falling 
from one vice to another, and so having found 
a vein 3 to finger crowns he grew cranker 4 than 
Lucanio, who by this time began to droop, 
being thus dealt withal by Lamilia. She hav- 
ing bewitched him with her enticing wiles, 
caused him to consume, in less than two years, 
that infinite treasure gathered by his father with 
so many a poor man's curse. His lands sold, 
his jewels pawned, his money wasted, he was 
cashiered by Lamilia that had cozened him of 
all. Then walked he, like one of Duke Hum- 
frey's squires, in a threadbare cloak, his hose 
drawn out with his heels, his shoes unseamed, 
lest his feet should sweat with heat: now (as 
witless as he was) he remembered his father's 
words, his kindness to his brother, his careless- 
ness of himself. In this sorrow he sat down on 
penniless bench; where, when Opus and Usus 5 
told him by the chimes in his stomach it was 
time to fall unto meat, he was fain with the 

1 Morality Play 2 from bad to worse 3 inclination 
* worse * need and custom 



camelion to feed upon the air, and make 
patience his best repast. 

While he was at his feast, Lamilia came 
flaunting by, garnished with the jewels whereof 
she beguiled him: which sight served to close 
his stomach after his cold cheer. Roberto, 
hearing of his brother's beggery, albeit he had 
little remorse ' of his miserable state, yet did 
he seek him out, to use him as a property, 2 
whereby Lucanio was somewhat provided for. 
But being of simple nature, he served but for 
a block to whet Roberto's wit on ; which the 
poor fool perceiving, he forsook all other hopes 
of life, and fell to be a notorious pandar: in 
which detested course he continued till death. 
But, Roberto, now famoused for an arch play- 
making poet, his purse like the sea sometime 
swelled, anon like the same sea fell to a low ebb ; 
yet seldom he wanted, his labours were so well 
esteemed. Marry, this rule he kept, whatever 
he fingered aforehand was the certain means 
to unbind a bargain, and, being asked why he 
so slightly dealt with them that did him good, 
"It becomes me," saith he, "to be contrary to 
the world, for commonly when vulgar men 
receive earnest, they do perform, when I am 
paid anything aforehand I break my promise." 
He had shift of lodgings, where in every place 
his hostess writ up the woeful remembrance of 
him, his laundress, and his boy; for they were 
ever his in household, beside retainers in sundry 
other places. His company were lightly 3 the 
lewdest persons in the land, apt for pilefrey, 
perjury, forgery, or any villany. Of these 
he knew the casts to cog 4 at cards, cozen at dice : 
by these he learned the legerdemains of nips, 
foisters, cony-catchers, crossbiters, lifts, high 
lawyers, 6 and all the rabble of that unclean 
generation of vipers: and pithily could he paint 
out their whole courses of craft: So cunning he 
was in all crafts, as nothing rested in him almost 
but craftiness. How often the gentlewoman 
his wife laboured vainly to recall him, is lament- 
able to note: but as one given over to all lewd- 
ness, he communicated her sorrowful lines 
among his loose trulls, that jested at her boot- 
less laments. If he could any way get credit 
on scores, he would then brag his creditors 
carried stones, comparing every round circle 
to a groaning O, procured by a painful burden. 
The shameful end of sundry his consorts, 6 
deservedly punished for their amiss, 7 wrought 



1 pity 2 tool 3 easily 4 cheat 8 different 
kinds of pickpockets and thieves a companions 

7 crime 



66 



ROBERT GREENE 



no compunction in his heart: of which one, 
brother to a brothel l he kept, was trussed under 
a tree ' as round as a hall. 3 

To some of his swearing companions thus it 
happened: A crew of them sitting in a tavern 
carousing, it fortuned an honest gentleman, and 
his friend, to enter their room: some of them 
being acquainted with him, in their domineering 
drunken vein, would have no nay, but _down 
he must needs sit with them; being placed, no 
remedy there was, but he must needs keep even 
compass with their unseemly carousing. Which 
he refusing, they fell from high words to sound 
strokes, so that with much ado the gentleman 
saved his own, and shifted from their company. 
Being gone, one of these ti piers forsooth lacked 
a gold ring, the other sware they see ' the gentle- 
man take it from his hand. Upon this the 
gentleman was indicted before a judge: these 
honest men are deposed: whose 5 wisdom 
weighing the time of the brawl, gave light to 
the jury what power wine-washing poison 
had: they, according unto conscience, found 
the gentleman not guilty, and God released by 
that verdfci the innocent. 

With his accusers thus it fared: one of them 
for murder was worthily executed: the other 
never since prospered: the third, sitting not 
long after upon a lusty horse, the beast 
suddenly died under him: God amend the 
man ! 

Roberto every day acquainted with these 
examples, was notwithstanding nothing bet- 
tered, but rather hardened in wickedness. At 
last was that place" justified, "Clod wameth 
men by dreams and visions in the night, and 
by known examples in the day, but if he return 
not. he comes upon him with judgment that 
shall be felt." For now when the number of 
deceits caused Roberto be hateful almost to 
all men, his immeasurable drinking had made 
him the perfect image of the dropsy, and the 
loathsome scourge of lust tyrannised in his 
loves: living in extreme poverty, and having 
nothing to pay but chalk, 7 which now his 
host accepted not for current, this miserable 
man lay comfortlessly languishing, having but 
one groat left (the just * proportion of his 
father's legacy) which looking on. he cried: 
" Oh now it is too late ! too late to buy wit with 
thee: and therefore will I see if I can sell to 
careless youth what I negligently forgot to buy." 

'trull "hanged s .4 poor pun; the man's • 
'all. *saw • *.e. the judge 'scriptural 

f small 
1 , tact 



Here (gentlemen) break I off Roberto's 
speech; whose life in most parts agreeing with 
mine, found one self punishment as I have 
done. Hereafter suppose me the said Roberto, 
and I will go on with that he promised: Greene 
will send you now his groatsworth of wit, that ' 
never showed a mitesworth in his life: and 
though no man now be by to do me good, yet, 
ere 1 die, I will by my repentance endeavour to 
do all men good. 

******* 

And therefore (while life gives leave") will 
send warning to my old consorts, 2 which have 
lived as loosely as myself, albeit weakness will 
scarce suffer me to write, yet to my fellow 
scholars about this City, will I direct these few 
ensuing lines. 

To those Gentlemen his Quondam acquaintance, 

that spend their wits in making Plays, 
R, Li. wisheth a better exercise, and 

wisdom to prevent his extremities. 

If woeful experience may move you tgentle- 
men) to beware, or unheard-of wretchedness 
entreat you to take heed, I doubt not but you 
will look back with sorrow on your time past, 
and endeavour with repentance to spend that 
which is to come. Wonder not (for with thee 
will I hrst begin), thou famous gracer of trage- 
dians, that Greene, who hath said with thee like 
the fool in his heart, "There is no v God," should 
now give glory unto his greatness: for pene- 
trating is his power, his hand lies heavy upon 
me, he hath spoken unto me with a voice oi 
thunder, and I have felt he is a God that can 
punish enemies. Why should thy excellent 
wit, his gift, be so blinded, that thou shouldst 
give no glory to the giver? Is it pestilent 
Machiavellian policy that thou hast studied? 
Punish ;i folly ! What are his rules but mere con- 
fused mockeries, able to extirpate in small time 
the generation of mankind. For if 5 
jubeo* hold in those that are able to command: 
and if it be lawful Fas et ne/as 5 to do anything 
that is beneficial, only tyrants should |x>ssess 
the earth, and they striving to exceed in tyranny, 
should each to other be a slaughter man; till 
the mightiest outliving all. one stroke were left 
for Death, that in one age man's life should 
end. The brother 1 of this Diabolical Atheism 
is dead, and in his life had never the felicity he 
aimed at: but as he began in craft, lived in 

1 who, i.e. Greene - companions s Punic, de- 
ceitful 4 so 1 wish, so I command * lawful or 
unlawful 6 ? brocher = beginner 






THE ART OF CONY-CATCHING 



67 



fear and ended in despair. Quant inscruta- 
bilia sunt Dei indicia?} This murderer of 
many brethren had his conscience seared like 
Cain : this betrayer of Him that gave his life for 
him inherited the portion of Judas: this apostata 
perished as ill as Julian : and wilt thou, my 
friend, be his disciple? Look unto me, by him 
persuaded to that liberty, and thou shalt find it 
an infernal bondage. I know the least of my 
demerits merit this miserable death, but willful 
striving against' known truth, exceedeth all 
the terrors of my soul. Defer not (with me) 
till this last point of extremity; for little know- 
est thou how in the end thou shalt be visited. 

With thee I join young Juvenal, that biting 
satirist, that lastly with me together writ a 
comedy. Sweet boy, might I advise thee, 
be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter 
words: inveigh against vain men, for thou canst 
do it, no man better, no man so well: thou 
hast a liberty to reprove all, and none more; 
for, one being spoken to, all are offended ; none 
being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow 
water still running, it will rage; tread on a 
worm and it will turn: then blame not scholars 
vexed with sharp lines, if they reprove thy too 
much liberty of reproof. 

And thou no less deserving than the other 
two, in some things rarer, in nothing inferior; 
driven (as myself) to extreme shifts, a little 
have I to say to thee : and were it not an idola- 
trous oath, I would swear by sweet S. George, 
thou art unworthy better hap, sith 2 thou de- 
pendest on so mean a stay. Base minded 
men all three of you, if by my misery ye be not 
warned: for unto none of you, like me, sought 
those burrs to cleave: those puppets, I mean, 
that speak from our mouths, those antics 
garnished in our colours. Is it not strange that 
I, to whom they all have been beholding: 
is it not like that you, to whom they all have 
been beholding, shall, were ye in that case that I 
am now, be both at once of them forsaken? 
Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart 
Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with 
his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, 
supposes he is as well able to bombast out a 
blank verse as the best of you: and being an 
absolute Johannes fac Mum, is in his own con- 
ceit the only Shake-scene in a country. O that 
I might entreat your rare wits to be employed 
in more profitable courses: and let those Apes 
imitate your past excellence, and never more 



1 How inscrutable arc the judgments of God 
2 since 



acquaint them with your admired inventions 
I know the best husband of you all will never 
prove an usurer, and the kindest of them all 
will never prove a kind nurse: yet whilst you 
may, seek you better masters; for it is pity 
men of such rare wits, should be subject to 
the pleasures of such rude grooms. 

In this I might insert two more, that both have 
writ against these buckram gentlemen: but 
let their own works serve to witness against 
their own wickedness, if they persevere to 
maintain any more such peasants. For other 
new comers, I leave them to the mercy of these 
painted monsters, who (I doubt not) will drive 
the best minded to despise them : for the rest, 
it skills not though they make a jest at them. 

But now return I again to you three, knowing 
my misery is to you no news.: and let me heartily 
entreat you to be warned by my harms. De- 
light not, as I have done, in irreligious oaths; 
for from the blasphemer's house a curse shall 
not depart. Despise drunkenness, which wast- 
eth the wit, and maketh men all equal unto 
beasts. Fly lust, as the deathsman of the soul, 
and defile not the temple of the Holy Ghost. 
Abhor those epicures, whose loose life hath 
made religion loathsome to your ears: and 
when they sooth you with terms of mastership, 
remember Robert Greene, whom they have so 
often flattered, perishes now for want of com- 
fort. Remember, gentlemen, your lives are 
like so many lighted tapers, that are with care 
delivered to all of you to maintain ; these with 
wind-puffed wrath may be extinguished, which 
drunkenness put out, which negligence let fall: 
for man's time of itself is not so short, but it is 
more shortened by sin. The fire of my light 
is now at the last snuff, and the want of where- 
with to sustain it, there is no substance left 
for life to feed on. Trust not then, I beseech 
ye, to such weak stays : for they are as change- 
able in mind, as in many attires. Well, my 
hand is tired, and I am forced to leave where 
I would begin; for a whole book cannot con- 
tain these wrongs, which I am forced to knit 
up in some few lines of words. 

Desirous that yon should live, though 
himself be dying, 
Robert Greene. 

From THE ART OF CONY-CATCHING » 

There be requisite effectually to act the Art 
of Cony-catching, three' several parties: the 
setter, the verser, and the barnacle. The 

1 bunco-steering 



68 



ROBERT GREENE 



nature of the setter, is to draw any person 

familiarly to drink with him, which person 

they call the cony, and their method is accord- 
ing to the man they aim at: if a gentleman, 
merchant, or apprentice, the cony is the more 
easily caught, in that they are soon induced to 

play, and therefore I omit the circumstance 
which they use in catching of them. And for 
because the poor country farmer or yeoman is 
the mark which they most i^\ all shoot at, who 
they know comes not empty to the term, 1 I 
will discover the means they put in practice to 
bring in some honest, simple and ignorant men 
to their purpose. The cony-catchers, appar- 
eled like honest civil gentlemen, or good fel- 
lows, with a smooth face, as if butter would 
not melt in their mouths, after dinner when the 
clients are come from Westminster Hall, and 
are at leisure to walk up and down Paul's, 
Fleet-street, Holborn, the Strand, and such 
common haunted places, where these co/ening 
companions attend only to spy out a prey: 
who as soon as they see a plain country fellow 
well and cleanly appareled, either in a coat 
of homespun russet, or of frieze, as the time 
requires, and a side'-' pouch at his side, "There 
is a cony," saith one. At that word out flies the 
setter, and overtaking the man, begins to salute 
him thus: "Sir, God save you, you are welcome 
to London, how doth all our good friends in the 
country, 1 hope they be all in health?" The 
country-man seeing a man. so courteous he knows 
not, half in a brown study at this strange 
salutation, perhaps makes him this answer: 
"Sir, all our friends in the country are well, 
thanks be to God, but truly I know you not, 
you must pardon me." "Why, sir," saith the 
setter, guessing by his tongue what country man 
he is, "are you not such a country man?" 
If he says yes, then he creeps upon him closely. 
If he say no, then straight the setter comes 
over him thus: "In good sooth, sir, 1 know you 
by your face and have been in your company 
before, I pray you, if without offence, let me 
crave your name, and the place of your abode." 
The simple man straight tells him where he 
dwells, his name, and who be his next neigh- 
bours, and what gentlemen dwell about him. 
After he hath learned all of him, then he comes 
over his fellow kindly: "Sir, though 1 have 
been somewhat bold to be inquisitive of your 
name, yet hold me excused, for 1 took you for a 
friend of mine, but since by mistaking I have 
made you slack your business, we'll drink a 



1 session of court 



w Mi- 



quart of wine, or a pot of ale together." If 
the fool be so ready as to go, then the cony is 
caught ; but if he smack the setter, and smells a 
rat by his clawing, and will not drink with him, 
then away goes the setter, and discourseth to 
the verser the name of the man, the parish he 
dwells in, and what gentlemen are his near 
neighbours. With that away goes he, and 
crossing the man at some turning, meets him 
full in the face, and greets him thus: 

"What, goodman barton, how fare all our 
friends about you? You are well met, I have 
the wine for you, you are welcome to town." 
The poor countryman hearing himself named 
by a man he knows not, marvels, and answers 
that he knows him not, and craves pardon. 
"Not me, goodman barton, have you forgot 
me? Why 1 am such a man's kinsman, your 
neighbour not far off; how doth this or that 
good gentleman my friend? Good Lord that 
I should be out of your remembrance, 1 have 
been at your house divers times." "Indeed 
sir," saith the farmer, "are you such a man's 
kinsman? Surely, sir, if you had not challenged 
acquaintance of me, 1 should never have known 
you. I have clean forgot you, but 1 know the 
good gentleman your cousin well, he is my very 
good neighbour:" "And for his sake," saith 
the verser, "we'll drink afore we part." Haply 
the man thanks him, and to the wine or ale 
they go. Then ere they part, they make him a 
cony, and so ferret -claw l him at cards, that they 
leave him as bare of money, as an ape of a tail. 
Thus have the filthy fellows their subtle fetches 
to draw on poor men to fall into their cozening 
practices. Thus like consuming moths of the 
commonwealth, they prey upon the ignorance 
of such plain souls as measure all by their own 
honesty, not regarding either conscience, or the 
fatal revenge that's threatened for such idle 
and licentious persons, but do employ all their 
wits to overthrow such as with their handy- 
thrift satisfy their hearty thirst, they prefer- 
ring cozenage before labour, and choosing an 
idle practice before any honest form of good 
living. Well, to the method again of taking 
up their conies. If the poor countryman smoke 
them still, and will not stoop unto either of their 
lures, then one, either the verser, or the setter, 
or some of their crew, for there is a general 
fraternity betwixt them, stoppcth before the 
conv as lie goeth, and letteth drop twelve pence 
in the highway, that of force'-' the cony must 
see it. The countryman spying the shilling, 

1 cheat - necessarily 
\ 






GREENE'S NFVFR TOO LATE 



6 9 



maketh not dainty, for quis nisi mentis inops 
oblatum respuii aurumj buj stoopeth veryman- 

iH'rly and takelh il up. 'I'lirn one of the cony 
catchers behind, crietb half part, and so chal- 
lengeth half of his finding. The countryman 
Content, offcrcth to change the money. "Nay 
faith, friend," sailh the verser, " 'tis ill luck to 
keep found money, we'll go spend it in a pottle 
of wine (or in a breakfast, dinner or supper, as 
the time of day requires)." If the cony say 
he will not, then answers the verser, "Spend 
my part." If still the cony refuse, he taketh 
half and away. If they spy the countryman 
to be of a having and covetous mind, then have 
they a further policy to draw him on: another 
that knowclh the place of his abode, meeteth 
him and saith, "Sir, well met, I have run hastily 
to overtake you, I pray you, dwell you not in 
Darbyshire, in such a village?" "Yes, marry, 
do I, friend," saith the cony. Then replies the 
verser, "Truly, sir, I have a suit to you, 1 am 
going out of town, and must send a letter to the 
parson of your parish. You shall not refuse to 
do a stranger such a favour as to carry it him. 
Haply, as men may in time meet, it may lie in 
my lot to do you as good a turn, and for your 
pains I will give you twelve pence." The 
poor cony in mere simplicity saith, "Sir, I'll 
do so much for you with all my heart; where is 
your letter?" "I have it not, good sir, ready 
written, but may 1 entreat you to step into some 
tavern or alehouse? We'll drink the while, 
and I will write but a line or two." At this the 
cony stoops, and for greediness of the money, 
and upon courtesy goes with the setter into the 
tavern. As they walk, they meet the verser, 
and then they all three go into the tavern to- 
gether. . . . 

GREENE'S NEVER TOO LATE 

From THE PALMER'S TALE 

In those days wherein Palmerin reigned king 
of Great Britain, famoused for his deeds of 
chivalry, there dwelled in the city of Casr- 
branck a gentleman of an ancient house, called 
Francesco, a man whose parentage though it 
were worshipful, yet it was not indued with much 
wealth, insomuch that his learning was better 
than his revenues, and his wit more beneficial 
than his substance. This Signor Francesco, 
desirous to bend the course of his compass to 
some peaceable port, spread no more cloth in 
the wind than might make easy sail, lest hoisting 

1 Who but a fool refuses offered gold ? 



up too hastily above the main yard, some sud- 
den gust might make him founder in the deep. 
Though he were young, yet he was not rash 
with Icarus to soar into the sky, but to cry out 
with old Dedalus, Medium ienere tiilissininm, 1 
treading his shoe without any slip. He was 
so generally loved of the citizens, that the 
richest merchant or gravest burghmastcr would 
not refuse to grant him his daughter in mar- 
riage, hoping more of his ensuing fortunes, 
than of his present substance. At last, casting 
his eye on a gentleman's daughter that dwelt 
not far from Caerbranck, he fell in love, and 
prosecuted his suit with such affable courtesy 
as the maid, considering the virtue and wit of 
the man, was content to set up her rest with 
him, so that 2 her father's consent might be at 
the knitting up of the match. Francesco, 
thinking himself cocksure, as a man thai hoped 
his credit in the city might carry away more 
than a country gentleman's daughter, finding 
her father on a day at fit opportunity, he made 
the motion about the grant of his daughter's 
marriage. The old churl, that listened with 
both ears to such a question, did not in this 
in utramvis aurem dormire; 3 but leaning on 
his elbow, made present answer, that her dowry 
required a greater feofment than his lands were 
able to afford. And upon that, without farther 
debating of the matter, he rose up, and hied 
him home. Whither as soon as he came, he 
called his daughter before him, whose name was 
Isabel, to whom he uttered these words: "Why, 
housewife," 1 quoth he, "are you so idle 
tasked, that you stand upon thorns while 6 
you have a husband? Are you no sooner 
hatched with the Lapwing but you will run 
away with the shell on your head? Soon 
pricks the tree that will prove a thorn, and a 
girl that loves too soon will repent too late. 
What, a husband? Why, the maids in Rome 
durst not look at Venus' temple till they were 
thirty, nor went they unmasked till they were 
married; that neither their beauties might 
allure other, nor they glance their eyes on every 
wanton. I tell thee, fond girl, when Nilus 
overfloweth before his time, Egypt is plagued 
with a dearth; the trees that blossom in Feb- 
ruary are nipped with the frosts in May; un- 
timely fruits had never good fortune; and 
young gentlewomen that are wooed and won 
ere they be wise, sorrow and repent before they 
be old. What seest thou in Francesco that 



1 It is safest to keep the middle way. 2 provided 
* sleep on either ear * huzzy 8 until 



7° 



ROBERT GRKKNK 



thine eve must choose, and thy heart must 
fancy? Is he beautiful? Why, fond girl, 
what the eve liketh at morn, it hatclh at night. 
Love is, like a bavin, 1 but a blaze; and beauty, 
why how can I better compare it than to the 
gorgeous cedar, that is only for show and noth- 
ing for profit; to the apples of Tantalus, that 

are precious to the eye, and dust in the hand; 
to (he star Arlophilex, that is most bright, but 
littcth not for any compass; so young men 
that stand upon their outward portraiture, I 
tell thee tliev are prejudicial. Dcmophon was 
fair, but how dealt he with Phillis? .'Eneas 
was a brave man but a dissembler. Fond 
girl, all are but little worth, if they be not 
wealthy. And I pray thee, what substance 

hath Francesco to endue thee with? Hast 
thou not heard, that want breaks amity, that 

love beginneth in gold and endeth in beggery; 

that such as marry but to a fair face, tie them 
selves oft to a foul bargain? \n<l what will 
thou do with a husband that is not able to main 
tain thee? Buy, forsooth, a dram of pleasure 
with a pound of sorrow, and a pint of content 
with a whole ton of prejudicial displeasures? 
but why do I cast stones into the air, or breathe 
my words into the wind; when to persuade a 
woman from her will is to roll Sisiphus' stone; 
or to hale a headstrong girl from love, is to tie 
the Furies again in fetters. Therefore, house- 
wile, to prevent all misfortunes I will be your 
jailer." And with that, he carried her in and 
shut her up in his own chamber, not giving her 
leave to depart but when his key gave her 
license; vet at last she so cunningly dissembled, 
that she got thus far liberty, not to be close 
prisoner, but to walk about the house. Yet 
every night he shut up her clothes, that no 
nightly fear of her escape might hinder his 
broken slumbers. 

Where leaving her, let us return to l'rancesco; 
who to his sorrow heard of all these hard for- 
tunes, and being pensive was full of many 
passions, but almost in despair, as a man that 
durst not come nigh her father's door, nor send 
any letters whereby to comfort his mistress, or 
to lay any plot of her liberty. For no sooner 
any Stranger came thither, but he, suspicious 
they came from Francesco, first sent up his 
daughter into her chamber; then as watchful 
as ArgUS with all his eves, he pried into every 
particular gesture and behaviour of the party; 
and if any jealous humour took him in the head, 
he would not only be very inquisitive with 

1 a di J I ■ 



cutting questions, but would strain courtesies 
and search them very narrowly, whether they 
had any letters or no to his daughter Isabel. 

This narrow inquisition made the poor gentle- 
man almost frantic, that he turned over Anac- 
reon, Ovid de Arte amandi, and all books that 
might teach him any sleights of love; but, for 
all their principles, his own wit served him for 
the best shift, and that was haply 1 begun 
and fortunately ended thus. It chanced that as 
he walked thus in his muses, fetching the com- 
pass of his conceit ' beyond the moon, he met 
with a poor woman that from door to door sought 
her living by charity. The woman, as her 
custom was, began her exordium with "I pray, 
good master," and so forth, hoping to find the 
gentleman as liberal, as he was full of gracious 
favours. Neither did she miss of her imagina- 
tion; for he, that thought her likely to be drawn 
on to the executing of his purpose, conceipted ' 
this, that gold was as good as glue to knit her 
to any practice whatsoever, and therefore out 
with his purse, and clapped her in the hand with 
a French crown. This unaccustomed reward 
made her more frank of her curtsies, that 
every rag reached the gentleman a reverence 
with promise of many prayers for his health. 
lb', that harped on another string, took the 
woman by the hand, and sitting down upon the 
green grass, discoursed unto her from point to 
point the beginning and sequel of his loves, 
and how by no means, except by her, he could 
convey any letter. The beggar, desirous to do 
the gentleman any pleasure, said she was ready 
to take- any pains that might redound to his 
content. Whereupon he replied thus; "Then, 
mother, thou shall go to yonder abbey, which 
is her father's house; and when thou comest 
thither, use thy wonted eloquence to entreat 
for thine alms. If the master of the house be 
present, show thy passport, and seem very 
passionate; 4 but if he be absent or out of the 
way, then, oh then, mother, look about if thou 
seest Diana masking in the shape of a virgin, 
if thou spiest Venus, nay, one more beautiful 
than love's goddess, and 1 tell thee she is my 
love, fair Isabel, whom thou shalt discern from 
her other sister, thus: her visage is fair, con 
taining as great resemblance of virtue as linea- 
ments of beauty, and yet I tell thee she is full 
of favour/' whether thou respects the outward 
portraiture or inward perfection; her eye like 
the diamond, and so pointed that it pierceth to 



1 by chant 
4 sorrowful 



" range of his fancy 
f beauty 



GREENE'S NEVER TOO LATE 



7i 



the quick, yet so chaste in the motion astherein 
is seen as in a mirror courtesy tempered with a 
virtuous disdain; her countenance is the very 
map of modesty, and, to give thee a more near 
mark, if thou fmdest her in the way, thou 
shall see her more liberal to bestow, than thou 
pitiful to demand; her name is Isabel; to 
her from me shalt thou carry a letter, folded up 
every way like thy passport, with a greasy back- 
side, and a great seal. If cunningly and closely 
thou canst thus convey unto her the tenure ' of 
my mind, when thou bringest me an answer, 
I will give thee a brace of angels." The poor 
woman was glad of this proffer, and thereupon 
promised to venture a joint, 2 but she would 
further him in his loves; whereupon she fol- 
lowed him to his chamber, and the whiles 3 
he writ a letter to this effect. 



Signor Francesco to Fair Isabel : 

When I note, fair Isabel, the extremity of 
thy fortunes, and measure the passions of my 
love, I find that Venus hath made thee constant 
to requite my miseries; and that where the 
greatest onset is given by fortune, there is 
strongest defence made by affection; for I 
heard that thy father, suspicious, or rather 
jealous, of our late-united sympathy, doth watch 
like Argus over Io, not suffering thee to pass 
beyond the reach of his eye, unless, 4 as he 
thinks, thou shouldest overreach thyself. 
His mind is like the tapers in Janus' temple, 
that, set once on fire, burn till they consume 
themselves; his thoughts like the sunbeams, 
that search every secret. Thus watching thee 
he overwaketh himself; and yet I hope pro- 
fit eth as little as they which gaze on the flames 
of /Etna, which vanish out of their sight in 
smoke. 

I have heard them say, fair Isabel, that, as 
the diamonds arc tried by cutting of glass, the 
topaz by biding the force of the anvil, the selhin 
wood by the hardness, so women's excellence 
is discovered in their constancy. Then, if the 
period of all their virtues consist in this, that 
they take in love by months, and let it slip by 
minutes, that, as the tortoise, they creep pc- 
delentim, 5 and, when they come to their rest, 
will hardly be removed, I hope thou wilt 
confirm in thy loves the very pattern of feminine 
loyalty, having no motion in thy thoughts, 
but fancy," and no affection, but to thy Fran- 



1 tenor 2 a slang phrase 3 meanwhile 
1 cautiously e love 



lest 



cesco. In that I am stopped from thy sight, I 
am deprived of the chiefest organ of my life, 
having no sense in myself perfect, in that I 
want the view of thy perfection, ready with sor- 
row to perish in despair, if, resolved of thy con- 
stancy, I did not triumph in hope. Therefore 
now rests it in thee to salve all these sores, and 
provide medicines for these dangerous maladies, 
that, our passions appeased, we may end our 
harmony in the faithful union of two hearts. 
Thou seest love hath his shifts, and Venus' 
quiddities 1 are most subtle sophistry; that he 
which is touched with beauty, is ever in league 
with opportunity. These principles are proved 
by the messenger, whose state discovers my 
restless thoughts, impatient of any longer re- 
pulse. I have therefore sought to overmatch 
thy father in policy, as he overstrains us in 
jealousy, and seeing he seeks it, to let him find 
a knot in a rush. As therefore I have sent thee 
the sum of my passions in the form of a passport, 
so return me a reply wrapped in the same paper, 
that as we are forced to cover our deceits in 
one shift, so hereafter we may unite our loves 
in one sympathy: Appoint what I shall do to 
compass a private conference. Think I will 
account of the seas as Leander, of the wars as 
Troilus, of all dangers as a man resolved to 
attempt any peril, or break any prejudice for 
thy sake. Say when and where I shall meet 
thee; and so, as I begun passionately, I break 
off abruptly. Farewell. 

Thine in fatal resolution, 

Seigneur Francesco. 

After he had written the letter, and despatched 
the messenger, her mind was so fixed on the 
brace of angels 2 that she stirred her old stumps 
till she came to the house of Seigneur Fregoso, 
who at that instant was walked abroad to take 
view of his pastures. She no sooner began her 
method of begging with a solemn prayer and a 
pater noster but Isabel, whose devotion was 
ever bent to pity the poor, came to the door, 
to see the necessity of the party, who began to 
salute her thus: "Fair mistress, whose virtues 
exceed your beauties (and yet 1 doubt not but 
you deem your perfection equivalent with the 
rarest paragons in Britain), as your eye receives 
the object of my misery, so let your heart have 
an insight into my extremities, who once was 
young, and then favoured by fortunes, now old 
and crossed by the destinies, driven, when I am 
weakest, to the wall, and, when I am worst, 

1 subtleties 2 gold coins worth 1 35. 4<2 . each 



ROBERT GREENE 



forced to hold the candle. Seeing, then, the 
faults of my youth hath forced the fall of mine 
age, and I am driven in the winter of mine years 
to abide the brunt of all storms, let the plenty 
of your youth pity the want of my decrepit 
state; and the rather, because my fortune was 
once as high as my fall is now low. For proof, 
sweet mistress, see my passport, wherein you 
shall find many passions and much patience." 
At which period, making a curtsey, her very 
rags seemed to give Isabel reverence. She, 
hearing the beggar insinuate with such a sen- 
sible preamble, thought the woman had had 
some good parts in her, and therefore took her 
certificate, which as soon as she had opened, and 
that she perceived it was Francesco's hand, she 
smiled, and yet bewrayed J a passion with a 
blush. So that, stepping from the woman, she 
went into her chamber, where she read it over 
with such pathetical 2 impressions as every 
motion was intangled with a dilemma; for, 
on the one side, the love of Francesco, grounded 
more on his interior virtues than his exterior 
beauties, gave such fierce assaults to the bul- 
wark of her affection, as the fort was ready to 
be yielded up, but that the fear of her father's 
displeasure armed with the instigations of 
nature drave her to meditate thus with her- 
self: 

"Now, Isabel, Love and Fortune hath 
brought thee into a labyrinth; thy thoughts 
are like to Janus' pictures, that present both 
peace and war, and thy mind like Venus' 
anvil, whereon is hammered both fear and 
hope. Sith, 3 then, the chance lieth in thine 
own choice, do not with Medea see and allow 
of the best, and then follow the worst: but of 
two extremes, if they be Immediata, choose 
that 4 may have least prejudice and most profit. 
Thy father is aged and wise, and many years 
hath taught him much experience. The old 
fox is more subtil than the young cub, the buck 
more skilful to choose his food than the young 
fawns. Men of age fear and foresee that 
which youth leapeth at with repentance. If, 
then, his grave wisdom exceeds thy green wit, 
and his ripened fruits thy sprouting blossoms, 
think if he speak for thy avail, as his principles 
are perfect, so they are grounded on love and 
nature. It is a near collop, 5 says he, is cut out 
of the own flesh ; and the stay of thy fortunes, 
is the staff of his life. No doubt he sees with 
a more piercing judgment into the life of Fran- 
cesco; for thou, overcome with fancy, censurest 



of all his actions with partiality. Francesco, 
though he be young and beautiful, yet his 
revenues are not answerable to his favours: 
the cedar is fair, but unfruitful; the Volgo a 
bright stream, but without fish; men covet 
rather to plant the olive for profit, than the 
alder for beauty; and young gentlewomen 
should rather fancy to live, than affect to lust, 
for love without lands is like to a fire without 
fuel, that for a while showeth a bright blaze 
and in a moment dieth in his own cinders. 
Dost thou think this, Isabel, that thine eye 
may not surfeit so with beauty, that the mind 
shall vomit up repentance? Yes, for the fair- 
est roses have pricks, the purest lawns their 
moles, the brightest diamonds their cracks, 
and the most beautiful men of the most imper- 
fect conditions; for Nature, having care to 
polish the body so far, overweens herself in 
her excellency, that she leaves their minds im- 
perfect. Whither now, Isabel; into absurd 
aphorisms? What, can thy father persuade 
thee to this, that the most glorious shells have 
not the most orient margarites, 1 that the purest 
flowers have not the most perfect favours, 2 that 
men, as they excel in proportion of body, so 
they exceed in perfection of mind? Is not 
nature both curious and absolute, hiding the 
most virtuous minds in the most beautiful 
covertures? Why, what of this, fond girl? 
Suppose these premises be granted, yet they 
infer no conclusion; for suppose hebe beauti- 
ful and virtuous, and his wit is equal with his 
parentage, yet he wants wealth to maintain 
love, and therefore, says old Fregoso, not 
worthy of Isabel's love. Shall I, then, tie my 
affection to his lands or to his lineaments? 
to his riches or his qualities? Are Venus' 
altars to be filled with gold or loyalty of hearts? 
Is the sympathy of Cupid's consistory 3 united 
in the abundance of coin? Or the absolute 
perfection of constancy? Ah, Isabel, think 
this, that love brooketh no exception of want, 
that where Fancy 4 displays her colour there 
always either plenty keeps her court, or else 
Patience so tempers every extreme, that all 
defects are supplied with content." Upon 
this, as having a farther reach, and a deeper 
insight, she stepped hastily to her standish, 5 
and writ him this answer: 

Isabel to Francesco, Health ! 

Although the nature of a father, and the duty 
of a child might move me resolutely to reject 



1 disclosed - emotional 3 since 4 that which 6 slice ' pearls 2 beauties 3 assembly 4 love 6 inkstand 



GREENE'S NEVER TOO LATE 



73 



thy letters, yet I received them, for that thou 
art Francesco and I Isabel, who were once pri- 
vate in affection, as now we are distant in places. 
But know my father, whose command to me 
is a law of constraint, sets down this censure, 
that love without wealth is like to a cedar tree 
without fruit, or to corn sown in the sands, that 
withereth for want of moisture; and I have 
reason, Francesco, to deem of snow by the 
whiteness, and of trees by the blossoms. The 
old man, whose words are oracles, tells me that 
love that entereth in a moment, flieth out in a 
minute, that men's affections is like the dew 
upon a crystal, which no sooner lighteth on, 
but it leapeth off; their eyes with every glance 
make a new choice, and every look can com- 
mand a sigh, having their hearts like saltpeter, 
that fireth at the first, and yet proveth but 
a flash; their thoughts reaching as high as 
cedars, but as brittle as rods that break with 
every blast. Had Carthage been bereft of so 
famous a virago, 1 if the beauteous Trojan had 
been as constant as he was comely? Had 
the Queen of Poetry been pinched with so 
many passions, if the wanton ferryman had 
been as faithful as he was fair? No, Fran- 
cesco, and therefore, seeing the brightest blos- 
soms are pestered with most caterpillars, the 
sweetest roses with the sharpest pricks, the 
fairest cambrics with the foulest stains, and 
men with the best proportion have commonly 
least perfection, I may fear to swallow the hook, 
lest I find more bane in the confection than 
pleasure in the bait. But here let me breathe, 
and with sighs foresee mine own folly. Women, 
poor fools, are like to the harts in Calabria, 
that knowing Dictannum to be deadly, yet 
browse on it with greediness; resembling the 
fish Mugra, that seeing the hook bare, yet 
swallows it with delight; so women foresee, 
yet do not prevent, knowing what is profitable, 
yet not eschewing the prejudice. So, Fran- 
cesco, I see thy beauties, I know thy want, 
and I fear thy vanities, yet can I not but allow 
of all, were they the worst of all, because I 
find in my mind this principle: " in Love is no 
lack." What 2 should I, Francesco, covet to 
dally with the mouse when the cat stands by, 
or fill my letter full of needless ambages 3 when 
my father, like Argus, setteth a hundred eyes 
to overpry my actions. While I am writing, 
thy messenger stands at the door praying. 
Therefore, lest I should hold her too long in 
her orisons, or keep thee, poor man, too long 

1 woman 2 why 3 circumlocutions 



in suspense; thus, briefly: Be upon Thursday 
next at night hard by the orchard under the 
greatest oak, where expect my coming, and 
provide for our safe passage; for stood all the 
world on the one side, and thou on the other, 
Francesco should be my guide to direct me 
whither he pleased. Fail not, then, unless 
thou be false to her that would have life fail, 
ere she falsify faith to thee. 

Not her own, because thine, 

Isabel. 

As soon as she had despatched her letter, she 
came down, and delivered the letter folded in 
form of a passport to the messenger, giving 
her after her accustomed manner an alms, 
and closely clapped her in the fist with a brace 
of angels. The woman, thanking her good 
master and her good mistress, giving the house 
her benison, hied her back again to Francesco, 
whom she found sitting solitary in his chamber. 
No sooner did he spy her but, flinging out of 
his chair, he changed colour as a man in a 
doubtful ecstasy what should betide; yet con- 
ceiving good hope by her countenance, who 
smiled more at the remembrance of her reward 
than at any other conceit, he took the letter 
and read it, wherein he found his humour so 
fitted that he not only thanked the messenger 
but gave her all the money in his purse, so that 
she returned so highly gratified as never after 
she was found to exercise her old occupation. 
But, leaving her to the hope of her housewifery, 
again to Francesco, who, seeing the constant 
affection of his mistress, that neither the sour 
looks of her father, nor his hard threats could 
affright her to make change of her fancy, that 
no disaster of fortune could drive her to make 
shipwreck of her fixed affection, that the blus- 
tering storms of adversity might assault, but 
not sack, the fort of her constant resolution, 
he fell into this pleasing passion: "Women," 
quoth he, "why, as they are heaven's wealth, 
so they are earth's miracles, framed by nature 
to despite beauty ; adorned with the singularity 
of proportion, to shroud the excellence of all 
perfection ; as far exceeding men in virtues as 
they excel them in beauties ; resembling angels 
in qualities, as they are like to gods in per- 
fectness, being purer in mind than in mould, 
and yet made of the purity of man; just they 
are, as giving love her due; constant, as hold- 
ing loyalty more precious than life; as hardly 
to be drawn from united affection as the sala- 
manders from the caverns of ^Etna. Tush," 
quoth Francesco, "what should I say? They 



74 



FRANCIS BACON 



be women, and therefore the continents ' of 
all excellence." In this pleasant humour he 
passed away die time, not slacking his business 

for provision against Thursday at night; to 

the care of which affairs let us leave him and 
return to Isabel, who, after she had sent her 
letter, fell into a great dump, entering into 
the consideration of men's inconstancy, ami 
of the fickleness of their fancies, hut all these 
meditations did sort to no effect; whereupon 
sitting down, she took her lute in her hand, and 
sung this (Vie: . . . 



FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) 

ESSAYS 
I. OF TRUTH 

What is Truth?' said jesting Pilate; and 
would not stay for an answer. Certainly there 
be that delight in giddiness, and count it a 
bondage to fix a belief; affecting free will in 
thinking, as well as in acting. And though 

the seets of philosophers of that kind lie gone, 
yet there remain certain discoursing wits which 
are of the same veins, though there be not so 
much blood in them as was in those of the 
ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and 
labour which men take in finding out of truth; 
nor again that when it is found it impose! h 
upon men's thoughts; that doth bring lies in 
favour; but a natural though corrupt love of 
the lie itself. One of the later school of the 
Grecians examined] the matter, and is at a 
stand to think what should be in it, that men 
should love lies, where neither they make for 
pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as 
with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But 
I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and 
open day light, that doth not show the masks 
and mummeries and triumphs of the world, 
half so Stately and daintily as caudle lights. 
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a 
pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will 
not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, 
that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture 
of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any 
man doubt, that if there were taken out of 
men's minds vain opinions, flattering hoj>es, 
false valuations, imaginations as one would, 
and the like, but it would leave the minds of a 
number of men poor shrunken things, full of 
melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing 



to themselves? One of the Fathers, in great 
severity, called poesy vinum decmonum ,' be- 
cause it filleth the imagination; and yet it 
is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not 
the lie that passeth through the mind, but the 
lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that cloth 
the hurt; such as we spake of before. Hut 
howsoever these things are thus in men's de- 
praved judgments and affections, \et truth, 
which only doth judge itself, teachcth that the 
inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or 
wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is 
the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which 
is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of 
human nature. The first creature- of CoA, 
in the works of the days, was the light of the 
sense; the last was the light of reason; ami his 
Sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of 
his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the 
face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed 
light into the face of man ; and still he breatheth 
and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. 
The poet 1 that beautified the sect 3 that was 
otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excel- 
lently well: // is a pleasure to stand upon the 
shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a 
pleasure to stand in the window of a eastle, and 
to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: 
but no pleasure is eomparable to the standing 
upon the vantage ground of Truth, (a hill not 
to be commanded, and where the air is always 
clear and serene,) and to see the .errors, and 
'wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the 
vale below; *o always that this prospect be 
with pity, and not with swelling or pride. 
Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a 
man's mind move in charity, rest in provi- 
dence, and turn upon the poles of truth. 

To pass from theological and philosophical 
truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be 
acknowledged even by those that practise it 
not, that clear and round dealing is the honour 
of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehood 
is like allay 4 in coin of gold and silver, which 
may make the metal work the better, but it 
embaseth it. For these winding and crooked 
courses are the goings of the serpent; which 
goeth basely Upon the belly, and not upon the 
feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a 
man with shame as to be found false and per- 
fidious. And therefore Montaigne saith pret- 
tilv, when he inquired the reason, why the 
word of the lie should be such a disgrace and 
such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well 



1 containers 



1 devil's-wine 'Lucretius 'Epicureans 'alio; 



ESSAYS 



75 



weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to 
say, as that he is brave towards God and a 
coward towards men. For a lie faces God, 
and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness 
of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly 
be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be 
the last peal to call the judgments of God upon 
the generations of men; it being foretold, that 
when Christ cometh, he shall ■ not find faith 
upon the earth. 

II. OF DEATH 

Men fear Death, as children fear to go in the 
dark; and as that natural fear in children is 
increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, 
the contemplation of death, as the wages of 
sin and passage to another world, is holy and 
religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due 
unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious medi- 
tations there is sometimes mixture of vanity 
and of superstition. You shall read in some 
of the friars' books of mortification, that a 
man should think with himself what the pain 
is if he have but his finger's end pressed or 
tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains 
of death are, when the whole body is corrupted 
and dissolved; when many times death pass- 
eth with less pain than the torture of a limb: 
for the most vital parts are not the quickest 
of sense. 1 And by him that spake only as a 
philosopher and natural man, it was well said, 
Pompa mortis magis tenet, quam mors ipsa? 
Groans and convulsions, and a discoloured face, 
and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, 
and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy 
the observing, that there is no passion in the 
mind of man so weak, but it mates 3 and mas- 
ters the fear of death; and therefore death is 
no such terrible enemy when a man hath so 
many attendants about him that can win the 
combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death ; 
Love slights it; Honour aspireth to it; Grief 
flieth to it; Fear pre-occupateth it; nay we 
read, after Otho the emperor had slain him- 
self, Pity (which is the tenderest of affections) 
provoked many to die, out of mere compassion 
to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of 
followers. Nay Seneca adds niceness and 
satiety: Cogita quamdiu eadcm feceris ; mori 
velle, nan tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam 
fastidiosus potest. A man would die, though 
he were neither valiant nor miserable, only 
upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft 

1 sensation 2 It is the accompaniments of death 
that arc frightful rather than death itself. 3 conquers 



over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, 
how little alteration in good spirits the ap- 
proaches of death make; for they appear to 
be the same men till the last instant. Augustus 
Caesar died in a compliment; Livia, conjugii 
nostri mem or, vive et vale: r Tiberius in dis- 
simulation; as Tacitus saith of him, Jam 
Tiberium vires et corpus, nan dissimulatio, 
deserebant: 2 Vespasian in a jest: Ut puto 
Deus fio : 3 Galba with a sentence ; Feri, si 
ex re sit populi Romani;* holding forth his 
neck: Septimius Severus in despatch; Adeste 
si quid mihi reslat agendum : B and the like. 
Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost 
upon death, and by their great preparations 
made it appear more fearful. Better saith he, 8 
qui finem vitce exlremum inter munera ponat 
natures. 1 It is as natural to die as to be born; 
and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as 
painful as the other. He that dies in an earn- 
est pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot 
blood ; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt ; 
and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon 
somewhat that is good doth avert the dolours 
of death. But above all, believe it, the sweet- 
est canticle is, Nunc dimittis ; 8 when a man 
hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. 
Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate 
to good fame, and extinguisheth envy. Ex- 
tinctus amabitur idem? 

IV. OF REVENGE 

Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the 
more man's nature runs to, the more ought 
law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, 
it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of 
that wrong putteth the law out of office. Cer- 
tainly, in taking revenge, a man is but_ even 
with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is 
superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. 
And Salomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory 
of a man to pass by an offence. That which is 
past is gone, and irrevocable; and wise men 
have enough to do with things present and to 
come; therefore they do but trifle with them- 
selves, that labour in past matters. There is 

1 Farewell, Livia, and forget not the days of our 
marriage. 2 His powers of body were gone, but his 
power of dissimulation still remained. 3 I think I am 
becoming a god. 4 Strike, if it be for the good of Rome. 
6 Make haste, if there is anything more for me to do. 
Juvenal 7 Who accounts the close of life as one 

of the benefits of nature. 8 See Luke, 2 : 29. ° The 
same man that was envied while he lived, shall be 
loved when he is gone. 



76 



FRANCIS BACON 



no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; 
but thereby to purchase himself profit, or 
pleasure, or honour, or the like. Therefore 
why should I be angry with a man for loving 
himself better than me? And if any man 
should do wrong merely out of ill-nature, why, 
yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which 
prick and scratch, because they can do no 
other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is 
for those wrongs which there is no law to 
remedy; but then let a man take heed the 
revenge be such as there is no law to punish; 
else a man's enemy is still before hand, and it 
is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, 
are desirous the party should know whence 
it cometh. This is the more generous. For 
the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing 
the hurt as in making the party repent. But 
base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that 
flieth in the dark. Cosmus, duke of Florence, 
had a desperate saying against perfidious or 
neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were un- 
pardonable; You shall read (saith he) that we 
are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you 
never read that we are commanded to forgive 
our friends. But yet the spirit of Job was in 
a better tune: Shall we (saith he) take good 
at God's hands, and not be content to take evil 
also ? And so of friends in a proportion. This 
is certain, that a man that studieth revenge 
keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise 
would heal and do well. Public revenges are 
for the most part fortunate; as that for the 
death of Caesar; for the death of Pertinax; 
for the death of Henry the Third of France; 
and many more. But in private revenges it is 
not so. Nay rather, vindictive persons live 
the life of witches; who, as they are mischiev- 
ous, so end they infortunate. 

V. OF ADVERSITY 

It was an high speech of Seneca (after the 
manner of the Stoics'), that the good things 
which belong to prosperity are to be wished; 
but the good tilings that belong to adversity are 
to be admired. Bona reruns seeundarum op- 
tabilia; adversarum mirabilia. Certainly if 
miracles be the command over nature, they 
appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher 
speech of his than the other (much too high 
for a heathen), 77 is true greatness to have in 
one the frailty of a man, and the security of a 
God. Vere magnum habere fragilitatcm liomi- 
nis, securitatem Dei. This would have done 
better in poesy, where transcendences are 



more allowed. And the poets indeed have 
been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing 
which is figured in that strange fiction of the 
ancient poets, which seemeth not to be with- 
out mystery; nay, and to have some approach 
to the state of a Christian; that Hercules, 
when he went to unbind Prometheus, (by whom 
human nature is represented), sailed the length 
of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; 
lively describing Christian resolution, that sail- 
eth in the frail bark of the flesh thorough the 
waves of the world. But to speak in a mean. 1 
The virtue of Prosperity is temperance; the 
virtue of Adversity is fortitude; which in morals 
is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the 
blessing of the Old Testament; Adversity is 
the blessing of the New; which carrieth the 
greater benediction, and the clearer revelation 
of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testa- 
ment, if you listen to David's harp, you shall 
hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and 
the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured 
more in describing the afflictions of Job than 
the felicities of Salomon. Prosperity is not 
without many fears and distastes; and Adver- 
sity is not without comforts and hopes. We 
see in needle-works and embroideries, it is 
more pleasing to have a lively work upon a 
sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark 
and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground : 
judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by 
the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is 
like precious odours, most fragrant when they 
are incensed or crushed: for Prosperity doth 
best discover vice, but Adversity doth best 
discover virtue. 

VIII. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE 

He that hath wife and children hath given 
hostages to fortune; for they are impediments 
to great enterprises, either of virtue or mis- 
chief. Certainly the best works, and of great- 
est merit for the public, have proceeded from 
the unmarried or childless men; which both 
in affection and means have married and en- 
dowed the public. Yet it were great reason 
that those that have children should have 
greatest care of future times; unto which they 
know they must transmit their dearest pledges. 
Some there are, who though they lead a single 
life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, 
and account future times impertinences. Nay, 
there are some other that account wife and 
children but as bills of charges. Nay more, 

1 a moderate fashion 



ESSAYS 



77 



there are some foolish rich covetous men, that 
take a pride in having no children, because 
they may be thought so much the richer. For 
perhaps they have heard some talk, Such an 
one is a great rich man, and another except to 
it, Yea, but lie hatli a great charge of children; 
as if it were an abatement to his riches. But 
the most ordinary cause of a single life is lib- 
erty, especially in certain self-pleasing and 
humorous ' minds, which are so sensible of 
every restraint, as they will go near to think 
their girdles and garters to be bonds and 
shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, 
best masters, best servants; but not always 
best subjects; for they are light to run away; 
and almost all fugitives are of that condition. 
A single life doth well with churchmen; for 
charity will hardly water the ground where it 
must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges 
and magistrates; for if they be facile and cor- 
rupt, you shall have a servant five times worse 
than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals 
commonly in their hortatives put men in mind 
of their wives and children; and I think the 
despising of marriage amongst the Turks 
maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Cer- 
tainly wife and children are a kind of discipline 
of humanity; and single men, though they 
may be many times more charitable, because 
their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other 
side, they are more cruel and hardhearted 
(good to make severe inquisitors), because 
their tenderness is not so oft called upon. 
Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore 
constant, are commonly loving husbands; as 
was said of Ulysses, vetulam suam pmtulit 
immortalitati. 2 Chaste women are often proud 
and froward, as presuming upon the merit of 
their chastity. It is one of the best bonds both 
of chastity and obedience in the wife, if she 
think her husband wise; which she will never 
do if she find him jealous. Wives are young 
men's mistresses; companions for middle age; 
and old men's nurses. So as a man may have 
a quarrel 3 to marry when he will. But yet 
he was reputed one of the wise men, that made 
answer to the question, when a man should 
marry? A young man not yet, an elder man 
not at all. It is often seen that bad husbands 
have very good wives; whether it be that it 
raiseth the price of their husband's kindness 
when it comes; or that the Wives take a pride 
in their patience. But this never fails, if the 



1 notionatc 2 He preferred his old wife to immor- 
tality. 3 reason 



bad husbands were of their own choosing, 
against their friends' consent; for then they 
will be sure to make good their own folly. 



X. OF LOVE 

The stage is more beholding to Love, than 
the life of man. For as to the stage, love is 
ever matter of comedies, and now and then of 
tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; 
sometimes like a syren, sometimes like a fury. 
You may observe, that amongst all the great 
and worthy persons (whereof the memory re- 
maineth, either ancient or recent) there is not 
one that hath been transported to the mad 
degree of love: which shows that great spirits 
and great business do keep out this weak pas- 
sion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus 
Antonius, the half partner of the empire of 
Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir 
and law-giver; whereof the former was indeed 
a voluptuous man, and inordinate; but the 
latter was an austere and wise man: and there- 
fore it seems (though rarely) that iove can find 
entrance not only into an open heart, but also 
into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well 
kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis 
magnum alter alteri theairum sumus; l as if 
man, made for the contemplation of heaven 
and all noble objects, should do nothing but 
kneel before a little idol, and make himself a 
subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts 
are), yet of the eye; which was given him for 
higher purposes. It is a strange thing to note 
the excess of this passion, and how it braves 
the nature and value of things, by this; that 
the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely 
in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely 
in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well 
said that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the 
petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's 
self; certainly the lover is more. For there 
was never proud man thought so absurdly well 
of himself as the lover doth of the person loved; 
and therefore it was well said, That it is im- 
possible to love and to be wise. Neither doth 
this weakness appear to others only, and not 
to the party loved ; but to the loved most of all, 
except the love be reciproque. For it is a 
true rule, that love is ever rewarded either with 
the reciproque or with an inward and secret 
contempt. By how much the more men ought 
to beware of this passion, which loseth .not 
only other things, but itself. As for the other 

1 Each is to other a theater large enough. 



78 



FRANCIS BACON 



losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them; 
That he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts 
of Juno and Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth 
too much of amorous affection quitteth both 
riches and wisdom. This passion hath his 
Hoods in the very times of weakness; which 
are great prosperity and great adversity ; though 
this latter hath been less observed: both which 
times kindle love, and make it more fervent, 
and therefore show it to be the child of folly. 
They do best, who if they cannot but admit 
love, yet make it keep quarter; and sever it 
wholly from their serious affairs and actions 
of life; for if it check once with business, it 
troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that 
they can no ways be true to their own ends. I 
know not how, but martial men are given to 
love: 1 think it is but as they are given to wine ; 
lor perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. 
There is in man's nature a secret inclination 
and motion towards love of others, which if it 
be not spent upon some one or a few, doth 
naturally spread itself towards many, and 
maketh men become humane and charitable; 
as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial love 
maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth 
it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth 
it. 

XI. OF GREAT PLACE 

Men in great place are thrice servants: ser- 
vants of the sovereign or state; servants of 
fame; and servants of business. So as they 
have no freedom ; neither in their persons, 
nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is 
a strange desire, to seek power and to lose 
liberty: or to seek power over others and to 
lose power over a man's self. The rising unto 
place is laborious; and by pains men come to 
greater pains; and it is sometimes base; and 
by indignities men come to dignities. The 
standing is slippery, and the regress is either 
a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a 
melancholy thing. Cum non sis qui fueris, 
lion esse cur veils vivere. 1 Nay, retire men 
cannot when they would, neither will they 
when it were reason; but are impatient of 
privateness, even in age and sickness, which 
require the shadow; like old townsmen, that 
will be still sitting at their street door, though 
thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly 
great persons had need to borrow other men's 
opinions, to think themselves happy; for if 

1 When you are no longer what you were, there is 
no reason why you should wish to live. 



they judge by their own feeling, they cannot 
find it: but if they think with themselves what 
other men think of them, and that other men 
would fain be as they are, then they are happy 
as it were by report; when perhaps they find 
the contrary within. For they are the first 
that find their own griefs, though they be the 
last that find their own faults. Certainly men 
in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, 
and while they are in the puzzle of business 
they have no time to tend their health either of 
body or mind. Illi mors gravis ineubat, qui 
notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi. 1 
In place there is license to do good and evil; 
whereof the latter is a curse: for in evil the 
best condition is not to will; the second not 
to can. But power to do good is the true and 
lawful end of aspiring. For good thoughts 
(though God accept them) yet towards men 
are little better than good dreams, except they 
be put in act ; and that cannot be without power 
and place, as the vantage and commanding 
ground. Merit and good works is the end of 
man's motion; and conscience of the same is 
the accomplishment of man's rest. For if a 
man can be partaker of God's theatre, he shall 
likewise be partaker of God's rest. Et con- 
versus Deus, at aspieeret opera qucc fecerunt 
man us suce, vidit quod omnia essent bona 
nimis; 2 and then the Sabbath. In the dis- 
charge of thy place set before thee the best 
examples; for imitation is a globe v 3 of precepts. 
And after a time set before thee thine own 
example; and examine thyself strictly whether 
thou didst not best at first. Neglect not also 
the examples of those that have carried them- 
selves ill in the same place; not to set off thy- 
self by taxing their memory, but to direct thy- 
self what to avoid. Reform therefore, without 
bravery or scandal of former times and persons; 
but yet set it down to thyself as well to create 
good precedents as to follow them. Reduce 
things to the first institution, and observe 
wherein and how they have degenerate; but 
yet ask counsel of both times; of the ancient 
time, what is best; and of the latter time, 
what is fittest. Seek to make thy course regu- 
lar, that men may know beforehand what they 
may expect ; but be not too positive anil peremp- 
tory; anil express thyself well when thou di- 
gressest from thy rule. Preserve the right of 



1 It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to 
everybody else, and still unknown to himself. -And 
God turned to look upon the works which his hands 
had made, and saw that all were very good. 3 world 






ESSAYS 



79 



thy place; but stir not questions of jurisdic- 
tion: and rather assume thy right in silence 
and de facto, than voice it with claims and chal- 
lenges. Preserve likewise the rights of inferior 
places; and think it more honour to direct in 
chief than to be busy in all. Embrace and 
invite helps and advices touching the execu- 
tion of thy place ; and do not drive away such 
as bring thee information, as meddlers; but 
accept of them in good part. The vices of 
authority are chiefly four; delays, corruption, 
roughness, and facility. For delays; give 
easy access; keep times appointed; go through 
with that which is in hand, and interlace not 
business but of necessity. For corruption; 
do not only bind thine own hands or thy ser- 
vants' hands from taking, but bind the hands 
of suitors also from offering. For integrity 
used doth the one; but integrity professed, 
and with a manifest detestation of bribery, 
doth the other. And avoid not only the fault, 
but the suspicion. Whosoever is found vari- 
able, and changeth manifestly without manifest 
cause, giveth suspicion of corruption. There- 
fore always when thou changest thine opinion 
or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, 
together with the reasons that move thee to 
change; and do not think to steal it. A ser- 
vant or a favourite, if he be inward, 1 and no 
other apparent cause of esteem, is commonly 
thought but a by-way to close corruption. For 
roughness; it is a needless cause of discontent: 
severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth 
hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to 
be grave, and not taunting. As for facility; it 
is worse than bribery. For bribes come but 
now and then; but if importunity or idle re- 
spects lead a man, he shall never be without. 
As Salomon saith, To respect persons is not 
good; for such a man will transgress for a piece 
of bread. It is most true that was anciently 
spoken, A place showeth the man. And it 
showeth some to the better, and some to the 
worse. Omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi 
imperassct, 2 saith Tacitus of Galba; but of 
Vespasian he saith, Solus impcraidiitm, Ves- 
pasiiiiius mutatus in melius: 3 though the one 
was meant of sufficiency, the other of manners 
and affection. It is an assured sign of a 
worthy and generous spirit, whom honour 
amends. For honour is, or should be, the 
place of virtue; and as in nature things move 

1 intimate - A man whom everybody would have 
thought fit for empire if he had not been emperor. 
3 He was the only emperor whom the possession of 
power changed for the better. 



violently to their place and calmly in their 
place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in author- 
ity settled and calm. All rising to great place 
is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, 
it is good to side a man's self whilst he is in the 
rising, and to balance himself when he is placed. 
Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly and 
tenderly; for if thou dost not, it is a debt will 
sure be paid when thou art gone. If thou have 
colleagues, respect them, and rather call them 
when they look not for it, than exclude them 
when they have reason to look to be called. 
Be not too sensible or too remembering of thy 
place in conversation and private answers to 
suitors; but let it rather be said, When he sits 
in place he is another man. 

XVI. OF ATHEISM 

I had rather believe all the fables in the 
Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, 
than that this universal frame is without a 
mind. And therefore God never wrought 
miracle to convince atheism, because his ordi- 
nary works convince it. It is true, that a little 
philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism ; 
but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds 
about to religion. For while the mind of man 
lookcth upon second causes scattered, it may 
sometimes rest in them, and go no further; 
but when it beholdeth the chain of them, con- 
federate and linked together, it must needs 
fly to Providence and Deity. Nay, even that 
school which is most accused of atheism doth 
most demonstrate religion; that is,- the school 
of Leucippus and Democritus and Epicurus. 
For it is a thousand times more credible, that 
four mutable elements, and one immutable 
fifth essence, duly and eternally placed, need 
no God, than that an army of infinite small 
portions or seeds unplaced, should have pro- 
duced this order and beauty without a divine 
marshal. The Scripture saith, The fool hath 
said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, 
The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he 
rather saith it by rote to himself, as that he 
would have, than that he can throughly believe 
it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny there 
is a God, but those for whom it maketh ' that 
there were no God. It appeareth in nothing 
more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in 
the heart of man, than by this; that atheists 
will ever be talking of that their opinion, as 
if they fainted in it within themselves, and 

1 would be advantageous 



8o 



FRANCIS BACON 



would be glad to be strengthened by the consenl 

of others. Nay more, you shall have atheists 
strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other 
Sects. And, which is most of all, you shall 
have of them that will suffer for atheism, and 
not recant; whereas if they did duly think 
that there were no sueh thing as God, why 

should they trouble themselves? Epicurus 

is charged that he did but dissemble for his 
credit's sake, when he affirmed there were 
blessed natures, but sueh as enjoyed themselves 

without having respect to the government of 
the world. Wherein they say he did tempo- 
rise; though in secret he thought there was 

no Cod. Hut certainly he is traduced; for 
his words are noble and divine: Notl DeoS 

vulgi negate profanum; sed vulgi opiniones 
Diis applicare profanum? Plato could have 

said no more. And although he had the con- 
fidence to deny the administration, he had not 
the power to deny the nature. The Indians 
^\ the west have names for their particular gods, 
though they have no name for God: as if the 
heathens should have had the names Jupiter, 
Apollo, Mars, etc., but not the word Pens; 
which shows that even those barbarous people 

have the notion, though they have not the lati- 
tude ami extent of it. So that against atheists 
the very savages take part with the very subtlest 
philosophers. The contemplative atheist is 

rare: a Diagoras, a Bion, a Lucian perhaps, 

and some others; and yet they seem to be more 
than they are; for that all that impugn a re- 
ceived religion or superstition are by the ad- 
verse part branded with the name of atheists, 
but the great atheists indeed are hypocrites; 
which are ever handling holy things, but with- 
out feeling; so as they must needs be cauterised 

in the end. The causes of atheism are: divi- 
sions in religion, if they be many; for any one 
main division addeth zeal to both sides; but 
many divisions introduce atheism. Another is, 
scandal of priests; when it is come to that 

which St. Bernard saith, Non esi jam dicere, ut 
populus sic sacerdos; quia nee sic populus id 
SacerdoS? A third is, custom of profane scof- 
fing in holy matters; which doth by little and 
little deface the reverence of religion. And 
lastly, learned times, specially with peace and 
prosperity; for troubles ami adversities ^\o 



1 There is no profanity in refusing to believe in the 

ol the vulgar; the profanity is in believing of 

the Gods what the vulgar believe of them. "One 

cannot now say, the priest is .is the people, for the 
truth is lh.it the people ,ue not SO bad as the priest. 



more bow men's minds to religion. They that 
deny a God destroy man's nobility; for cer- 
tainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; 
and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, 
he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys 
likev ise magnanimity, ami the raising of human 
nature; for take an example of a dog, and mark 
what a generosity and courage he will put on 
when he finds himself maintained by a man; 
who to him is instead of a (iod.or melior uatura , A 
which courage is manifestly such as that crea- 
ture, without that confidence of a better nature 
than his own, could never attain. So man, 
when he resteth and assureth himself upon 
divine protection and favour, gathered) a force 
and faith which human nature in itself could 
not obtain. Therefore, as atheism is ,in all 
respects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth 
human nature of the means to exalt itself above 
human frailty. As it is in particular persons, 
so it is in nations. Never was there such a 
state for magnanimity as Rome. Of this slate 
hear what Cicero saith: Quam volumus licet, 

patres conscripH, nos amemus, tamen nee nu- 
mero Hispanos, nee robore Hallos, nee colli- 
dilate Pcenos, nee arlibus Grcecos, nee denique 

hoc ipso hu'jus gentis ct tcrnr domes! ico nati- 
voque scusu Italos ipsos ct Latinos: sed pietate, 
ac religione, atque hoc una sapientia, quod /V- 
orum immortalium numine omnia regi guber- 
nariquc pcrspcximus, omncs gentes noHonesque 
super avimus} 



Will. OF WISDOM FOR A MANS SELF 

An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is 
a shrewd ■ thing in an orchard or garden. And 
certainly men that are great losers of them- 
selves waste the public. Divide with reason 
between self love and society; and be so true 
to thyself, as thou be not false to others; spe- 
cially to thy king and country. It is a poet 
centre of a man's actions, himself. It is right • 



1 a higher being - Pride ourselves as we may 

upon our country, yet are we not in number superior 
to the Spaniards, nor in strength to the Gauls, nor in 
cunning to the Carthaginians, nor to the Greeks in 

arts, nor to the Italians and 1. alius themselves in 
the homely ami native sense which belongs to this 
nation and land; it is in piety only ami religion, anil 

the wisdom of regarding the providence of the [m- 
mortal Gods as that which rules and governs all 

that we have surpassed all nations and 
peoples. ;i bad ' very 



ESSAYS 



81 



earth. For that ! only stands fast upon his 
own centre; whereas all things that have affin- 
ity with the heavens, move upon the centre of 
another, which they benefit. The referring of 
all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sover- 
eign prince; because themselves are not only 
themselves, but their good and evil is at the 
peril of the public fortune. But it is a des- 
perate evil in a servant to a prince, or a citizen 
in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass 
such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his 
own ends; which must needs be often eccen- 
tric to a the ends of his master or state. There 
fore let princes, or states, choose such servants 
as have not this mark; except they mean their 
service should be made but the accessary. 
That which maketh the effect more pernicious 
is that all proportion is lost. It were dispro- 
portion enough for the servant's good to be 
preferred before the master's; but yet it is a 
greater extreme, when a little good of the ser- 
vant shall carry things against a great good of 
the master's. And yet that is the case of bad 
officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and 
other false and corrupt servants; which set a 
bias 3 upon their bowl, of their own petty ends 
and envies, to the overthrow of their master's 
great and important affairs. And for the most 
part, the good such servants receive is after the 
model of their own fortune; but the hurt they 
sell for that good is after the. model of their 
master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature 
of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house 
on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs; and 
yet these men many times hold credit with 
their masters, because their study is but to 
please them and profit themselves; and for 
either respect they will abandon the good of 
their affairs. 

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches 
thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of 
rats, that will be sure to leave a house some- 
what before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, 
that thrusts out the badger, who digged and 
made room for him. It is the wisdom of croco- 
diles, that shed tears when they would devour. 
But that which is specially to be noted is, that 
those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are 
sui amantes, sine rivali,* are many times un- 
fortunate. And whereas they have all their 
time sacrificed to themselves, they become in 



1 the earth, according to the Ptolemaic theory 

2 not having the same center ;is a a weight placed 
on a bowl to make it take a curved course 4 lovers of 
themselves without rival 



the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy 
of fortune; whose wings they thought by their 
self-wisdom to have pinioned. 

XXV. OF DISPATCH 

Affected dispatch is one of the most danger- 
ous things to business that can be. It is like 
that which the physicians call predigestion, or 
hasty digestion; which is sure to fill the body 
full of crudities and secret seeds of diseases. 
Therefore measure not dispatch by the times of 
sitting, but by the advancement of the business. 
And as in races it is not the large stride or high 
lift that makes the speed; so in business, the 
keeping close to the matter, and not taking of 
it too much at once, procureth dispatch. It 
is the care of some only to come off speedily 
for the time; or to contrive some false periods 
of business, because ' they may seem men of 
dispatch. But it is one thing to abbreviate 
by contracting, another by cutting off. And 
business so handled at several sittings or meet- 
ings goeth commonly backward and forward 
in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man 
that had it for a by-word, when he saw men 
hasten to a conclusion, Slay a little, that we 
may make an end the sooner. 

On the other side, true dispatch is a rich 
thing. For time is the measure of business, as 
money is of wares; and business is bought at 
a dear hand where there is small dispatch. 
The Spartans and Spaniards have been noted 
to be of small dispatch; Mi venga la muerte 
de Spagna; Let my death come from Spain; 
for then it will be sure to be long in coming. 

Give good hearing to those that give the first 
information in business; and rather direct 
them in the beginning, than interrupt them in 
the continuance of their speeches; for he that 
is put out of his own order will go forward and 
backward, and be more tedious while he waits 
upon his memory, than he could have been if 
he had gone on in his own course. But some- 
times it is seen that the moderator 2 is more 
troublesome than the actor. 3 

Iterations are commonly loss of time. But 
there is no such gain of time as to iterate often 
the state of the question; for it chaseth away 
many a frivolous speech as it is coming forth. 
Long and curious 4 speeches are as fit for dis- 
patch, as a robe or mantle with a long train is 
for race. Prefaces and passages, and excusa- 

1 in order that 2 the director of the talk 3 the 
speaker 4 elaborate 



s. 



FRANCIS BACON 



tions, and other speeches of reference to the 
person, arc great wastes of time; and though 
they seem to proceed of modesty, they are brav- 
ery. 1 Yet beware of being too material 1 when 
there is any impediment or obstruction in men's 
wills; for preoccupation of mind over re- 
quireth preface of speech; like a fomentation 
to make the unguent enter. 

Above all things, order, and distribution, 
and singling out of parts, is the life of dispatch; 
so as the distribution be not too subtle: for 
he that doth not divide will never enter well 
into business; and he that divideth too much 
will never come out of it clearly. To choose 
time is to save time; and an unseasonable 
motion is but beating the air. There be three 
pans of business; the preparation, the debate 
or examination, and the perfection. Whereof, 
if you look for dispatch, let the middle only 
be the work of many, and the first and last the 
work of few. The proceeding upon somewhat 
conceived in writing doth for the most part 
facilitate dispatch: for though it should be 
wholly rejected, yet that negative is more preg- 
nant of direction than an indefinite; as ashes 
are more generative than dust. 

WYU. OF FRIENDSHIP 

It had been hard for him that spake it to 
have put more truth and untruth together in 
few words, than in that speech, 11 

For it is most true that a natural and 
secret hatred and aversation towards society in 
any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; 
but it is most untrue that it should have any 
character at all of the divine nature; except it 
proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but 
out of a love and desire to sequester a man's 
self for a higher conversation: such as is found 
to have been falsely and feignedlv in some 
of the heathen; as Fpimenides the Candian. 
Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, 
and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really 
in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fa- 
thers of the church. But little do men perceive 
what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. 
For a crowd is not company; and faces are but 
a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling 
cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin 
adage meeteth with it a little: .U,.\ 

because in a great town friends 



are scattered; so that there is not that fellow- 
ship, for the most part, which is in less neigh- 
bourhoods. Hut we may go further, and affirm 
most truly that it is a mere ami miserable soli- 
tude to want true friends; without which the 
world is but a wilderness; and even in this 
sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame 
of his nature and affections is unfit for friend- 
ship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from 
humanity. 

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease 
and discharge of the fulness and swellings of 
the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause 
and induce. We know diseases of stoppings 
and suffocations are the most dangerous in 
the body; and it is not much otherwise in the 
mind; you may take sar.a to open the liver, 
steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for 
the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no 
receipt ' openeth the heart, but a true friend; 
to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, 
hopes, suspicions, counsels, ami whatsoever 
lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind 
of civil ' shrift or confession. 

It is a strange thing to observe how high a 
rate great kings and monarchs do set upon 
this fruit of friendship whereof we speak: so 
great, as they purchase it many times at the 
hazard of their own safety and greatness. 
For princes, in regard of the distance of their 
fortune from that of their subjects ami servants, 
cannot gather this fruit, except (to x make them- 
selves capable thereof) they raise some jx^rsons 
to be as it were companions and almost equals 
to themselves, which many times sorteth to 3 
inconvenience. The modern languages give 
unto such persons the name of favourites, or 
' as if it we're matter of grace, or 
conversation. But the Roman name attaineth 
the true use and cause thereof, naming them 
for it is that which tieth 
the knot. And we see plainly that this hath 
been done, not by weak and passionate princes 
only, but by the wisest and most politic that 
ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to 
themselves some of their servants; whom both 
themselves have called friends, and allowed 
others likewise to call them in the same manner; 
using the word which is received between pri- 
vate men. 

1 Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised. 
Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to 
height, that Pompey vaunted himself for 






bus a s A l rec - ; results in 4 int. 

great to itude. s share 



ESSAYS 



83 



Sylla's over-match. For when he had carried 
the consulship for a friend of his, against the 
pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little 
resent thereat, and began to speak great, 
Pompcy turned upon him again, and in effect 
bade him be quiet; for that more men adored 
the sun rising than the sun setting. With 
Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained 
that interest, as he set him down in his testa- 
ment for heir in remainder after his nephew. 
And this was the man that had power with 
him to draw him forth to his death. For when 
Caesar would have discharged the senate, in 
regard of some ill presages, and specially a 
dream of Calpumia; this man lifted him gently 
by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped 
he would not dismiss the senate till his wife 
had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth 
his favour was so great, as Antonius, in a letter 
which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's 
Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch; as if 
be had enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised 
Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, 
as when he consulted with Maecenas about the 
marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took 
the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry 
his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life: 
there was no third way, he had made him so 
great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had 
ascended to that height, as they two were 
termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. 
Tiberius in a letter to him saith, hesc pro 
amieitia nostra non oeeultavi; ' and the whole 
senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to 
a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of 
friendship between them two. The like or 
more was between Septimius Severus and 
Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to 
marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would 
often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to 
his son; and did write also in a letter to the 
senate, by these words: / love the man so well, 
as I wish he may over-live me. Now if these 
princes had been as a Trajan or a Marcus 
Aurelius, a man might have thought that this 
had proceeded of an abundant goodness of 
nature; but being men so wise, of such strength 
and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of 
themselves, as all these were, it proveth most 
plainly that they found their own felicity 
(though as great as ever happened to mortal 
men) but as an half piece, except they mought 
have a friend to make it entire; and yet, which 

1 These things, because of our friendship, I have not 
concealed from you. 



is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, 
nephews; and yet all these could not supply 
the comfort of friendship. 

It is not to be forgotten what Commineus * 
observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the 
Hardy; namely, that he would communicate 
his secrets with none; and least of all, those 
secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon 
he goeth on and saith that towards his lat- 
ter time that closeness did impair and a little 
perish his understanding. Surely Commineus 
mought have made the same judgment also, 
if it had pleased him, of his second master, 
Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed 
his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is 
dark, but true; Cor ne edito: Eat not the heart. 
Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, 
those that want friends to open themselves unto 
are cannibals of their own hearts. But one 
thing is most admirable (wherewith I will 
conclude this first fruit of friendship), which 
is, that this communicating of a man's self 
to his friend works two contrary effects; for 
it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs. 
For there is no man that imparteth his joys 
to his friend, but he joyeth the more: and no 
man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but 
he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth of 
operation upon a man's mind, of like virtue 
as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone 
for man's body; that it worketh all contrary 
effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. 
But yet without praying in aid 2 of alchemists, 
there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary 
course of nature. For in bodies, union strength- 
eneth and cherisheth any natural action; and 
on the other side weakeneth and dulleth any 
violent impression : and even so is it of minds. 

The second fruit of friendship is healthful 
and sovereign for the understanding, as the 
first is for the affections. For friendship 
maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from 
storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight 
in the understanding, out of darkness and con- 
fusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be under- 
stood only of faithful counsel, which a man 
receiveth from his friend; but before you come 
to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his 
mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and 
understanding do clarify and break up, in the 
communicating and discoursing with another; 
he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he mar- 
shalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they 
look when they are turned into words: finally, 

1 Philippe de Commines 2 calling in as advocates 



8 4 



FRANCIS BACON 



he waxeth wiser tlian himself; and that more 
by an hour's discourse than by a day's medi- 
tation. It was well said by Themistocles to 
the king of Persia, That speech was like cloth 
of Arras, opened and put abroad ; -whereby the 
imagery doth appear in figure; -whereas in 
thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is 
this second fruit of friendship, in opening the 
understanding, restrained only to such friends 
as are able to give a man counsel; (they indeed 
are best) ; but even without that, a man 
learneth of himself, and bringeth his own 
thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as 
against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a 
word, a man were better relate himself to a 
Statua 1 or picture, than to suffer his thoughts 
to pass in smother. 

Add now, to make this second fruit of friend- 
ship complete, that other point which lieth 
more open and falleth within vulgar observa- 
tion; which is faithful counsel from a friend. 
Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, 
Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, 
that the light that a man receiveth by counsel 
from another, is drier and purer than that 
which cometh from his own understanding 
and judgment; which is ever infused and 
drenched in his affections and customs. So as 
there is as much difference between the counsel 
that a friend givcth, and that a man giveth 
himself, as there is between the counsel of a 
friend and of a Batterer, For there is no such 
flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such 
remedy against flattery of a man's self, as the 
liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: 
the one concerning manners, the other concern- 
ing business. For the first, the best preser- 
vative to keep the mind in health is the faith- 
ful admonition of a friend. The calling of a 
man's self to a strict account is a medicine, 
sometime, too piercing and corrosive. Read- 
ing good books of morality is a little flat and 
dead. Observing our faults in others is some- 
times improper for our case. But the best 
receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) 
is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange 
thing to behold what gross errors and extreme 
absurdities many (especially of the greater 
sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell 
them of them ; to the great damage both of their 
fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, 
they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, 
and presently forget their own shape and favour. 
As for business, a man may think, if he will, 

1 statue 



that two eyes see no more than one; or that a 
gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; 
or that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath 
said over the four and twenty letters; or that 
a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm 
as upon a rest; and such other fond and high 
imaginations, to think himself all in all. But 
when all is done, the help of good counsel is 
that which setteth business straight. And if 
any man think that he will take counsel, but it 
shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one busi- 
ness of one man, and in another business of 
another man ; it is well, (that is to say, better 
perhaps than if he asked none at all;) but he 
runneth two dangers : one, that he shall not be 
faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, 
except it be from a perfect and entire friend, 
to have counsel given, but such as shall be 
bowed and crooked to some ends which he 
hath that giveth it. The other, that he shall 
have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe, (though 
with good meaning,) and mixed partly of 
mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you 
would call a physician that is thought good 
for the cure of the disease you complain of, 
but is unacquainted with your body; and there- 
fore may put you in way for a present cure, 
but overthroweth your health in some other 
kind; and so cure the disease and kill the 
patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted 
with a man's estate will beware, by furthering 
any present business, how he dasheth upon 
other inconvenience. And therefore rest not 
upon scattered counsels; they will rather dis- 
tract and mislead, than settle and direct. 

After these two noble fruits of friendship 
(peace in the affections, and support of the 
judgment) followeth the last fruit; which 
is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; 
I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions 
and occasions. Here the best way to repre- 
sent to life the manifold use of friendship, is 
to cast and see how many things there are which 
a man cannot do himself; and then it will 
appear that it was a sparing speech of the an- 
cients, to say, that a friend is another himself; 
for that a friend is far more than himself. 
Men have their time, and die many times in 
desire of some things which they principally 
take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the 
finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have 
a true friend, he may rest almost secure that 
the care of those things will continue after him. 
So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his 
desires. A man hath a body, and that body 
is confined to a place; but where friendship 



ESSAYS 



85 



is, all offices of life are as it were granted to him 
and his deputy. For he may exercise them 
by his friend. How many things are there 
which a man cannot, with any face or comeli- 
ness, say or do himself? A man can scarce 
allege his own merits with modesty, much less 
extol them ; a man cannot sometimes brook 
to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. 
But all these things are graceful in a friend's 
mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. 
So again, a man's person hath many proper 
relations which he cannot put off. A man 
cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his 
wife but as a husband ; to his enemy but upon 
terms: whereas a friend may speak as the 
case requires, and not as it sorteth 1 with the 
person. But to enumerate these things were 
endless; I have given the rule, where a man 
cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not 
a friend, he may quit the stage. 

XLII. OF YOUTH AND AGE 

A man that is young in years may be old in 
hours, if he have lost no time. But that hap- 
peneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the 
first cogitations, not so wise as the second. 
For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in 
ages. And yet the invention of young men 
is more lively than that of old ; and imagina- 
tions stream into their minds better, and as it 
were more divinely. Natures that have much 
heat and great and violent desires and pertur- 
bations, are not ripe for action till they have 
passed the meridian of their years; as it was 
with Julius Caesar, and Septimius Severus. 
Of the latter of whom it is said, Juventutem 
egit erroribus, imo furoribus, plenum. 2 And 
yet he was the ablest emperor, almost, of all 
the list. But reposed natures may do well in 
youth. As it is seen in Augustus Caesar, 
Cosmus Duke of Florence, Gaston de Fois, 
and others. On the other side, heat and vivac- 
ity in age is an excellent composition for busi- 
ness. Young men are fitter to invent than to 
judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; 
and fitter for new projects than for settled busi- 
ness. For the experience of age, in things that 
fall within the compass of it, directeth them ; 
but in new things, abuseth them. The errors 
of young men are the ruin of business; but the 
errors of aged men amount but to this, that more 
might have been done, or sooner. Young 
men, in the conduct and manage of actions, 

1 agrees 2 He passed a youth full of errors; yea, 
of madnesses. 



embrace more than they can hold; stir more 
than they can quiet; fly to the end, without 
consideration of the means and degrees; pur- 
sue some few principles which they have 
chanced upon absurdly; care 1 not to innovate, 
which draws unknown inconveniences; use 
extreme remedies at first; and, that which 
doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or 
retract them; like an unready horse, that will 
neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too 
much, consult too long, adventure too little, 
repent too soon, and seldom drive business 
home to the full period, but content themselves 
with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is 
good to compound employments of both; for 
that will be good for the present, because the 
virtues of either age may correct the defects 
of both ; and good for succession, that young 
men may be learners, while men in age are 
actors; and, lastly, good for extern accidents, 
because authority followeth old men, and 
favour and popularity youth. But for the 
moral part, perhaps youth will have the pre- 
eminence, as age hath for the politic. A cer- 
tain rabbin, upon the text, Your young men 
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
dreams, inferreth that young men are admitted 
nearer to God than old, because vision is a 
clearer revelation than a dream. And cer- 
tainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, 
the more it intoxicateth : and age doth profit 
rather in the powers of understanding, than 
in the virtues of the will and affections. 
There be some have an over-early ripeness in 
their years, which fadeth betimes. These are, 
first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof 
is soon turned; such as was Ilermogenes the 
rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtle; 
who afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort 
is of those that have some natural dispositions 
which have better grace in youth than in age; 
such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech; which 
becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully 
saith of Hortensius, Idem manebat, neque idem 
deccbat? The third is of such as take too high 
a strain at the first, and are magnanimous more 
than tract of years can uphold. As was Scipio 
Africanus, of whom Livy saith in effect, Ultima 
primis cedebant. 3 

XLIII. OF BEAUTY 

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set; 
and surely virtue is best in a body that is comely, 

1 hesitate 2 He continued the same, when the same 
was not becoming. 3 His last actions were not equal 
to his first. 



86 



THOMAS NASHE 



(hough not of delicate features; and that hath 
in her dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect. 
Neither is it almost seen, 1 that very beautiful 
persons are otherwise of great virtue; as if 
nature were rather busy not to err, than in 
labour to produce excellency. And therefore 
they prove accomplished, but not of great 
spirit; and study rather behaviour than virtue, 
but this holds not always: for Augustus Caesar, 
Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of France, 
Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of 
Athens, Ismael the Sophy of Persia, were all 
high and great spirits; and yet the most beau- 
tiful men of their times. In beauty, that of 
favour is more than that of colour; and that 
of decent and gracious motion more than that 
of favour. That is the best part of beauty, 
which a picture cannot express; no nor the first 
sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty 
that hath not some strangeness in the propor- 
tion. A man cannot tell whether Apelles or 
Albert Durer were the more trifler; whereof 
the one would make a personage by geometrical 
proportions; the other, by taking the best parts 
out of divers faces, to make one excellent. 
Such personages, I think, would please nobody 
but the painter that made them. Not but I 
think a painter may make a better face than 
ever was; but he must do it by a kind of fe- 
licity (as a musician that maketh an excellent 
air in music), and not by rule. A man shall 
see faces, that if you examine them part by 
part, you shall find never a good; and yet 
altogether do well. If it be true that the prin- 
cipal part of beauty is in decent motion, cer- 
tainly it is no marvel though persons in years 
seem many times more amiable; pulchrorum 
autuiuuus pulcher; 2 for no youth can be comely 
but by pardon, and considering the youth as to 
make up the comeliness. Beauty is as summer 
fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot 
last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute 
youth, and an age a little out of countenance; 
but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh 
virtues shine, and vices blush. 

THOMAS NASHE (i 567-1601) 

THE UNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER 

About that time that the terror of the world 
and fever quartan of the French, Henry the Eight 
(the only true subject of chronicles), advanced 
his standard against the two hundred and fifty 



1 it is scarcely ever seen 
have a beautiful autumn. 



8 Beautiful persons 



towers of Tournay and Terouennc, and had 
the Emperor and all the nobility of Flanders, 
Holland, and Brabant as mercenary attendants 
on his full-sailed fortune, I, Jack Wilton, (a 
gentleman at least,) was a certain kind of 
an appendix or page, belonging or appertain- 
ing in or unto the confines of the English court; 
where what my credit was, a number of my 
creditors that I cozened can testify: Caelum 
petimus stullitia, which of us all is not a sinner? 
Be it known to as many as will pay money 
enough to peruse my story, that I followed the 
court or the camp, or the camp and the court. 
There did I (Soft, let me drink before I go any 
further !) reign sole king of the cans and black 
jacks, prince of the pygmies, county palatine of 
clean straw and provant, and, to conclude, 
lord high regent of rashers of the coals and red 
herring cobs. Paulo majora canamus. Well, to 
the purpose. What stratagemical acts and mon- 
uments do you think an ingenious infant of my 
years might enact? You will say, it were sufficient 
if he slur a die, pawn his master to the utmost 
penny, and minister the oath of the pantofle arti- 
ficially. These are signs of good education, I 
must confess, and arguments of In grace and vir- 
tue to proceed. Oh, but Aliquid laid quod non 
paid, there's a further path I must trace: 
examples confirm; list, lordings, to my pro- 
ceedings. Whosoever is acquainted with the 
state of a camp understands that in it be many 
quarters, and yet not so many as on London 
bridge. In those quarters are many companies : 
Much company, much knavery, as true as that 
old adage, "Much courtesy, much subtiltv." 
Those companies, like a great deal of corn, 
do yield some chaff; the corn arc cormorants, 
the chaff are good fellows, which arc quickly 
blown to nothing with bearing a light heart in a 
light purse. Amongst this chaff was I winnow- 
ing my wits to live merrily, and by my troth so 
I did: the prince could but command men 
spend their blood in his service, I could make 
them spend all the money they had for my 
pleasure. But poverty in the end parts friends; 
though I was prince of their purses, and exacted 
of my unthrift subjects as much liquid alle- 
giance as any kaiser in the world could do, yet 
where it is not to be had the king must lose his 
right : want cannot be withstood, men can do 
no more than they can do: what remained then, 
but the fox's case must help, when the lion's 
skin is out at the elbows? 

There was a lord in the camp, let him be 
a Lord of Misrule if you will, for he kept a 
plain alehouse without welt or guard of any 



THE UNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER 



87 



ivy bush, and sold cider and cheese by pint and 
by pound to all that came, (at the very name of 
cider I can but sigh, there is so much of it in 
Rhenish wine nowadays). Well, Tendit ad 
sidcra virtus, there's great virtue belongs (I 
can tell you) to a cup of cider, and very good 
men have sold it, and at sea it is Aqua ccelcslis; 
but that's neither here nor there, if it had no 
other patron but this peer of quart pots to 
authorise it, it were sufficient. This great 
lord, this worthy lord, this noble lord, thought 
no scorn (Lord, have mercy upon us !) to have 
his great velvet breeches larded with the drop- 
pings of this dainty liquor, and yet he was an old 
servitor, a cavalier of an ancient house, as might 
appear by the arms of his ancestors, drawn very 
amiably in chalk on the inside of his tent door. 
He and no other was the man I chose out to 
damn with a lewd moneyless device ; for coming 
to him on a day, as he was counting his barrels 
and setting the price in chalk on the head of 
them, I did my duty very devoutly, and told 
his aie-y honour I had matters of some secrecy 
to impart unto him, if it pleased him to grant me 
private audience. "With me, young Wilton?" 
quod he; "marry, and shalt! Bring us a pint 
of cider of a fresh tap into the Three Cups here; 
wash the pot." So into a back room he led 
me, where after he had spit on his finger, and 
picked off two or three moats of his old moth- 
eaten velvet cap, and sponged and wrung all 
the rheumatic drivel from his ill-favoured goat's 
beard, he bade me declare my mind, and there- 
upon he drank to me on the same. I up with a 
long circumstance, alias, a cunning shift of the 
seventeens, and discoursed unto him what en- 
tire affection I had borne him time out of mind, 
partly for the high descent and lineage from 
whence he sprung, and partly for the tender care 
and provident respect he had of poor soldiers, 
that, whereas the vastity of that place (which 
afforded them no indifferent supply of drink 
or of victuals) might humble them to some 
extremity, and so weaken their hands, he 
vouchsafed in his own person to be a victualler 
to the camp (a rare example of magnificence 
and honourable courtesy), and diligently pro- 
vided that without far travel every man might 
for his money have cider and cheese his belly 
full; nor did he sell his cheese by the wey only, 
or his cider by the great, but abased himself 
with his own hands to take a shoemaker's 
knife (a homely instrument for such a high 
personage to touch) and cut it out equally, 
like a true justiciary, in little pennyworths that 
it would do a man good for to look upon. So 



likewise of his cider, the poor man might have 
his moderate draught of it (as there is a moder- 
ation in all things) as well for his doit or his 
dandiprat as the rich man for his half sous or his 
denier. "Not so much," quoth I, "but this 
tapster's linen apron which you wear to protect 
your apparel from the imperfections of the 
spigot, most amply bewrays your lowly mind. 
I speak it with tears, too few such noble men 
have we, that will draw drink in linen aprons. 
Why, you are every child's fellow; any man 
that comes under the name of a soldier and a 
good fellow, you will sit and bear company to 
the last pot, yea, and you take in as good part 
the homely phrase of 'Mine host, here's to 
you,' as if one saluted you by all the titles 
of your barony. These considerations, I say, 
which the world suffers to slip by in the channel 
of forgetful ness, have moved me, in ardent zeal 
of your welfare, to forewarn you of some dangers 
that have beset you and your barrels." At 
the name of dangers he start up, and bounced 
with his fist on the board so hard that his 
tapster overhearing him, cried, "Anon, anon, 
sir! by and by!" and came and made a low 
leg and asked him what he lacked. He was 
ready to have striken his tapster for interrupt- 
ing him in attention of this his so much desired 
relation, but for fear of displeasing me he mod- 
erated his fury, and only sending for the other 
fresh pint, willed him look to the bar, and come 
when he is called, "with a devil's name!" 
Well, at his earnest importunity, after I had 
moistened my lips to make my lie run glib to 
his journey's end, forward I went as followeth. 
"It chanced me the other night, amongst other 
pages, to attend where the King, with his lords 
and many chief leaders, sat in counsel: there, 
amongst sundry serious matters that were 
debated, and intelligences from the enemy 
given up, it was privily informed (No villains 
to these privy informers !) that you, even you 
that I now speak to, had — (O would I had no 
tongue to tell the rest; by this drink, it grieves 
me so I am not able to repeat it !) " Now was 
my drunken lord ready to hang himself for the 
end of the full point, and over my neck he 
throws himself very lubberly, and entreated me, 
as I was a proper young gentleman and ever 
looked for pleasure at his hands, soon to rid 
him out of this hell of suspense, and resolve 
him of the rest: then fell he on his knees, 
wrung his hands, and I think on my conscience, 
wept out all the cider that he had drunk in a 
week before: to move me to have pity on him, 
he rose and put his rusty ring on my finger, gave 



THOMAS NASHE 



mc his greasy purse with that single money that 
was in it, promised to make me his heir, and a 
thousand more favours, if I would expire the 
misery of his unspeakable tormenting un- 
certainty. I, being by nature inclined to 
Mercie (for indeed I knew two or three good 
wenches of that name), bade him harden his 
ears, and not make his eyes abortive before 
their time, and he should have the inside of 
my breast turned outward, hear such a tale as 
would tempt the utmost strength of life to 
attend it and not die in the midst of it. " Why 
(quoth I) myself that am but a poor childish 
well-wilier of yours, with the very thought that 
a man of your desert and state by a number of 
peasants and varlets should be so injuriously 
abused in hugger mugger, have wept. The 
wheel under our city bridge carries not so much 
water over the city, as my brain hath welled 
forth gushing streams of sorrow. My eyes have 
been drunk, outrageously drunk, with giving 
but ordinary intercourse through their sea- 
circled islands to my distilling dreariment. 
What shall I say? that which malice hath said 
is the mere overthrow and murder of your 
days. Change not your colour, none can slander 
a clear conscience to itself; receive all your 
fraught of misfortune in at once. 

"It is buzzed in the King's head that you are 
a secret friend to the enemy, and under pre- 
tence of getting a license to furnish the camp 
with cider and such like provant, you have 
furnished the enemy, and in empty barrels 
sent letters of discovery and corn innumerable." 

I might well have left here, for by this time 
his white liver had mixed itself with the white 
of his eye, and both were turned upwards, as 
if they had offered themselves a fair white for 
death to shoot at. The truth was, I was very 
loth mine host and I should part with dry lips: 
wherefore the best means that I could imagine 
to wake him out of his trance, was to cry loud 
in his ear, "Ho, host, what's to pay? will no 
man look to the reckoning here?" And in 
plain verity it took expected effect, for with 
the noise he started and bustled, like a man 
that had been scared with fire out of his sleep, 
and ran hastily to his tapster, and all to be- 
laboured him about the ears, for letting gentle- 
men call so long and not look in to them. 
Presently he remembered himself, and had like 
to fall into his memento again, but that I met 
him half ways and asked his lordship what he 
meant to slip his neck out of the collar so sud- 
denly, and, being revived, strike his tapster so 
hastily. 



"Oh (quoth he), I am bought and sold for 
doing my country such good service as I have 
done. They are afraid of me, because my 
good deeds have brought me into such esti- 
mation with the commonalty. I see, I see, it 
is not for the lamb to live with the wolf." 

"The world is well amended (thought I) 
with your cidership; such another forty years' 
nap together as Epimenides had, would make 
you a perfect wise man." "Answer me (quoth 
he), my wise young Wilton, is it true that I 
am thus underhand dead and buried by these 
bad tongues?" 

"Nay (quoth I), you shall pardon me, for 
I have spoken too much already ; no definitive 
sentence of death shall march out of my well- 
meaning lips; they have but lately sucked milk, 
and shall they so suddenly change their food 
and seek after blood?" 

"Oh, but (quoth he) a man's friend is his 
friend; fill the other pint, tapster: what said 
the King? did he believe it when he heard it? 
I pray thee say; I swear by my nobility, none 
in the world shall ever be made privy that I 
received any light of this matter by thee." 

"That firm affiance (quoth I) had I in you be- 
fore, or else I would never have gone so far over 
the shoes, to pluck you out of the mire. Not to 
make many words, (since you will needs know,) 
the King says flatly, you are a miser and a 
snudge, and he never hoped better of you." 
"Nay, then (quoth he) questionless some 
planet that loves not cider hath conspired 
against me." "Moreover, which is worse, 
the King hath vowed to give Terouenne one 
hot breakfast only with the bungs that he will 
pluck out of your barrels. I cannot stay at 
this time to report each circumstance that 
passed, but the only counsel that my long 
cherished kind inclination can possibly con- 
trive, is now in your old days to be liberal : 
such victuals or provision as you have, presently 
distribute it frankly amongst poor soldiers; I 
would let them burst their bellies with cider 
and bathe in it, before I would run into my 
prince's ill opinion for a whole sea of it. If 
greedy hunters and hungry tale-tellers pursue 
you, it is for a little pelf that you have ; cast it 
behind you, neglect it, let them have it, lest 
it breed a farther inconvenience. Credit my 
advice, you shall find it prophetical: and thus 
have I discharged the part of a poor friend." 
With some few like phrases of ceremony, 
" Your I lonour's poor suppliant," and so forth, 
and "Farewell, my good youth, I thank thee 
and will remember thee," we parted. 



THOMAS DEKKER 



89 



But the next day I think we had a dole of 
cider, cider in bowls, in scuppets, in helmets; 
and to conclude, if a man would have filled his 
boots full, there he might have had it: provant 
thrust itself into poor soldiers' pockets whether 
they would or no. We made five peals of shot 
into the town together of nothing but spiggots 
and faucets of discarded empty barrels: every 
under-foot soldier had a distenanted tun, as 
Diogenes had his tub to sleep in. I myself got 
as many confiscated tapster's aprons as made 
me a tent as big as any ordinary commander's 
in the field. But in conclusion, my well- 
beloved baron of double beer got him humbly 
on his mary-bones to the king, and complained 
he was old and stricken in years, and had never 
an heir to cast at a dog, wherefore if it might 
please his Majesty to take his lands into his 
hands, and allow him some reasonable pension 
to live, he should be marvellously well pleased : 
as for wars, he was weary of them ; yet as long 
as his Highness ventured his own person, he 
would not flinch a foot, but make his withered 
body a buckler to bear off any blow advanced 
against him. 

The King, marvelling at this alteration of 
his cider merchant (for so he often pleasantly 
termed him), with a little farther talk bolted 
out the whole complotment. Then was I 
pitifully whipped for my holiday lie, though 
they made themselves merry with it many a 
winter's evening after. 

THOMAS DEKKER (is7o?-i6 4 i ?) 

THE GULL'S HORNBOOK 

CHAPTER VI 

How a Gallant should behave himself in 
a Play-House 

The theatre is your poets' royal exchange, 
upon which their muses (that are now turned 
to merchants) meeting, barter away that light 
commodity of words for a lighter ware than 
words, plauditie?, and the breath of the great 
beast; which (like the threatenings of two 
cowards) vanish all into air. Players and their 
factors, who put away the stuff, and make the 
best of it they possibly can (as indeed 'tis their 
parts so to do), your gallant, your courtier, 
and your captain, had wont to be the soundest 
paymasters; and I think are still the surest 
chapmen ; and these, by means that their heads 
are well stocked, deal upon this comical freight 
by the gross: when your groundling, and gal- 
lery-commoner buys his sport by the penny, 



and, like a haggler, is glad to utter it again by 
retailing. 

Since then the place is so free in entertain- 
ment, allowing a stool as well to the farmer's 
son as to your templer: 1 that your stinkard 
has the selfsame liberty to be there in his to- 
bacco fumes, which your sweet courtier hath : 
and that your carman and tinker claim as 
strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give 
judgment on the play's life and death, as well 
as the proudest momus among the tribes of 
critic: it is fit that he, whom the most tailors' 
bills do make room for, when he comes, should 
not be basely (like a viol) cased up in a corner. 

Whether therefore the gatherers 2 of the pub- 
lic or private playhouse stand to receive the 
afternoon's rent, let our gallant (having paid 
it) presently advance himself up to the throne 
of the stage. I mean not into the lord's room 
(which is now but the stage's suburbs) : no, 
those boxes, by the iniquity of custom, con- 
spiracy of waiting women and gentlemen ush- 
ers, that there sweat together, and the covetous- 
ness of sharers, are contemptibly thrust into 
the rear, and much new satin is there damned, 
by being smothered to death in darkness. But 
on the very rushes where the comedy is to 
dance, yea, and under the state 3 of Cambises 
himself must our feathered estridge, 4 like a piece 
of ordnance, be planted, valiantly (because im- 
pudently) beating down the mewes and hisses 
of the opposed rascality. 

For do but cast up a reckoning, what large 
comings-in are pursed up by sitting on the 
stage. First a conspicuous eminence is got; 
by which means, the best and most essential 
parts of a gallant (good clothes, a proportion- 
able leg, white hand, the Persian lock, and a 
tolerable beard) are perfectly revealed. 

By sitting on the stage, you have a signed 
patent to engross the whole commodity of cen- 
sure; may lawfully presume to be a girder; 
and stand at the helm to steer the passage of 
scenes; yet no man shall once offer to hinder 
you from obtaining the title of an insolent, 
overweening coxcomb. 

By sitting on the stage, you may (without 
travelling for it) at the very next door ask whose 
play it is: and, by that quest of inquiry, the 
law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if 
you know not the author, you may rail against 
him: and peradventure so behave yourself, 
that you may enforce the author to know you. 



1 a resident of one of the inns of court 
keepers 3 canopy 4 ostrich 



'■ door- 



9° 



THOMAS DEKKER 



By sitting on the stage, if you be a knight, 
you in. iv happil) ' gel you a mistress: if a mere 
Fleet-street gentleman, a wife; bul assure 
yourself, by continual residence, you are the 
in .1 and principal man in election to begin 
the niiinU-i ui We Three 

By spreading your body on the Btage, and 
by being a justice in examining i>i plays, you 
shall put yourself into such true scenical au 
thority, thai some poel shall nol dare to presenl 
his muse rudely upon youi eyes, withoul hav 
in;', first unmasked her, rifled her, and dis 
covered all her bare and most mystical parts 
before you at a tavei a, when you most knightlj 
shall, for his pains, pay lor l>oth their sup 

pcrs. 

By sitting on the stage, you may (with small 
cost) purchase the dear acquaintance of the 
boys have a )\ooA stool for sixpence! at any 

time know what particular part any of the in 

fants present: get your match lighted, examine 
the play suits' Luc, and perhaps win wagers 
upon laying 'tis copper, etc. And to conclude, 
whether you be a fool or a justice of peace, a 
cuckold, or a captain, a lord mayor's son, or 
a dawcock, a knave, or an under-sheriff; of 
what stamp soevei you be, current, or counter 
leit, the stage, like time, will bring you to most 

pel fe< I light anil lay yOU Open : neither are you 

to be hunted from thence, though the scare 
i rows in the yard hool at you, hiss at you, spil 
at \ow, yea, throw <lirt even in your teeth: 'tis 
most gentlemanlike patience to endure all this, 

and to laugh at the silly animals: but it" the 

rabble, with a full throat, cry, "Away with the 

tool," you Were worse than a madman to lari\ 
by it: for the gentleman and the fool should 

never sit on the stage together. 

Marry, let this observation go hand in hand 
with the rest: or rather, like a country sen 
Ing man, some live yards before them. Tie 
sent not yourself on the Stage (especially at a 
new play) until the quaking prologue hath (by 
rubbing) gOl colour into his checks, and is 
ready to give the trumpets their cue, that he's 
upon point to enter: for then it is time, as 
though \ou were one of the properties, or that 
YOU dropped out of the hangings, to creep from 
behind the anas, with your tripos or thiee 
looted stool in one hand, and a teston mounted 

between a forefinger and a thumb in the other: 

for if you should bestow \our person upon the 
VUhrar, when the bcllv ol the house is but hall" 



1 haply, bj chance 'A |esl that still survh 
\ pictured two tools oi asses with this inscription. 



full, your apparel is quite eaten up, the fashion 

lost, and the proportion of your body in more 

danger to be devoured than if it were served 

Up in the counter amongst the poultry: avoid 
that as you would the bastome.' It shall ciow n 
you with rich commendation to laugh aloud 
in the midst of ihe most serious and saddest 
scene ol" the tcrriblest Ir.u-edv : and to let that 
clapper (your tongue) be tossed so high, that 
all the house may rim; of it: your lords use it; 
your knights are apes to tin- lords, and Ao so 
loo: youi in a court man is .'any'-' to the knights, 
and (marry very SCUTVily) COmeS likewise limp 
in:', after it: be thou a beagle to them all, and 
never lin' snuffing, till von have scented them: 

for by talking and laughing dike a ploughman 

in a niori is") von heap lVlion upon Ossa, glory 
upon glory: as first, all Ihe eyes in the galleries 

will leave walking after the players, and only 

follow you: ihe simplest dolt in the house 
snatches up your name, and when he meets 
you in tin- streets, or that you fall into his 
hands in Ihe middle of a watch, his word shall 
be taken lor vou : he'll cry "lie's such a gal- 
lanl," and you pass. Secondly, you publish 
your temperance to the world, in that you seem 
not to resort thither to taste vain pleasures 

with a hungry appetite: but only as a gentle- 
man to spend a foolish hour or two, because 
you can o'o nothing else: thirdly, vou mightily 
disrelish the audience, and disgrace the author: 
marry, you take up (though it be at the worst 
hand) a Strong opinion of your own judgment, 
and enforce the poet lo take pity of your weak 
ness, and, b\ some dedicated sonnet, lo bring 
you into a belter paradise, only to slop your 
mouth. 

If you can (either for love or money), provide 

yourself a lodging bv the water side: tor, 
above ihe convenience il brings to shun shoul 
tier clapping, 4 and to ship away your cocka 
trice betimes in the morning, it adds a kind o\ 
slate unto you, lo In- carried from thence to the 
stairs of your play house: hate a sculler (re- 
member that) woise than to be acquainted 
with one o' th' scullery. No, your oars are 
yOUT Only sea crabs, board them, and take heed 
you never go twice together with one pair: 
often shifting is a great credit to gentlemen; 
and that dividing of your fare will make the 
poor watersnakeS be ready lo pull you in pieces 
to enjoy your custom: no mailer whether upon 
landing, vou have money or no: you may swim 
in twenty of their boats over the river upon 



:udgd 



ape 



cease ' by > constable 



THE GULL'S HORNBOOK 



9i 



ticket: marry, when silver comes iii, remember 
to pay treble their fare, and it will make your 
flounder catchers to send more thanks after 

JTOU, when yon do not draw, than when you 
do; lor they know, it will he their own another 
day. 

Before the play begins, fall to cards: you 
may win or lose (as fencers do in a prize) and 
lieal one another by confederacy, yet share the 

money when you meet at supper: notwith- 
standing, to guU the ragamuffins that stand 
aloof gaping at you, throw the cards (having 
first lorn four or live of them) round about the 
Stage, just upon the third sound,' as though 
you had lost: it skills not if the four knaves 
lie on their hacks, and outface the audience; 
there's none such fools as dare lake exceptions 
at them, because, ere the play go off, heller 
knaves than they will fall into the company. 
Now, sir, if llie writer he a fellow thai halh 

cither epigrammed you, or hath had a flirt at 

your mistress, or halh broughl either your 
feather, or your red heard, or your little legs, 
etc., on the Stage, you shall disgrace him worse 

than by tossing him in a blanket, or giving him 

the bastinado in a tavern, if, in the middle of 
his play (he il pastoral or comedy, moral or 
tragedy), you rise with a screwed and dis 
contented face from your stool to he gone: no 

mailer whether the scenes he good or no; llie 
better they are the worse do you distaste them: 
and, being on your feel, sneak nol awav like a. 

coward, but saluie all your gentle acquaintance, 

thai are spread either on the rushes, or on 
stools ahoiil you, and draw what troop you can 
from the stage after you: the mimics are he 

holden to you, lor allowing them elbow room: 

their poel cries, perhaps, "a po\ j^o with you," 
hui (are not for thai, there's no music without 
frets. 

Marry, if either llie company, or indisposi- 
tion of the weather hind you to sit it out, my 
Counsel IS then that you turn plain ape, lake 
up a rush, and tickle the earnest earn oJ your 

fellow gallants, to make other fools fall a laugh- 
ing: mew at passionate speeches, blare al 
merry, find fault wilh the music, whew at the 
children's aclion, whistle al llie SOngS: and 
above all, curse the sharers, that yvhereas llie 
same day V011 had bestowed forty shillings 
on an embroidered fell and feather (Scotch 
fashion) lor your mistress in the court, or your 
punk in the city, within two hours after, you 
encounter with the very same block'- on the 



Stage, when the haberdasher swore to you the 
impression was extant but thai morning. 

To conclude, hoard up the finest play scraps 
you can get, upon which your lean wil may 
most savourly ivrt\, for waul of oilier stuff, when 
the Arcadian and Kuphtiised <>enl lewomen have 

their tongues sharpened to set upon you: that 
quality (nexl to your shuttlecock) is the only 
furniture to a courtier that's but a new beginner, 

and is but in his A B (' of compliment. 'The 
nexl places thai are filled, after the playhouses 
be emptied, are (or OUghl to be) taverns: into 
a tavern then let us nexl march, where the 
brains of one hogshead must lie beaten out to 
make up another. 

CHAPTER VII 

How a Gallant should behave bimsels' in 
a Tavern 

Whosoever desires to be a man of good reck 
oiling in the city, and (like your French lord) 
to have as many tables furnished as lackeys 
(who, when they keep least, keep none), 

whether he be a young qual ' of the fust year's 

revenue, or some auslere and sullen In id 
Steward, who (in despite of a great beard, a. 
satin suit, and a, chain of gold Wrapped in <v 
press) proclaims himself to any (but to those 
to whom his lord owes money) for a rank COX 
comb, or whether he be a country gentleman, 
thai brings his wife up to learn llie fashion, see 

the tombs at Westminster, the lions in the 

Tower, or to lake physic; or else is some young 
farmer, who many times makes his wife (in the 
COUntry) believe lie halh suits in law, because 
he will come up to his lechery: be he of what 
stamp he will that halh money in his purse, and 
a good conscience lo spend it, my counsel is 
thai he lake his continual diet at a tavern, 

which (out of question) is the only rendez vous 

of boon company; and llie drawers- the most 
nimble, the most bold, and mosl sudden pro 

claimers of your largest bounty. 

Having therefore thrusl yourself into a case' 1 
most in fashion (how coarse soever the stuff be, 
'lis no mailer so il hold fashion), your office IS 
(if you mean to do your judgment right) lo 
impure out those taverns which are best CUS 
tomed, whose masters are oflenesl drunk (for 

thai confirms their taste, and thai they choose 

wholesome wines), and such as stand furthest 
from the counters; where, landing yourself 



1 i.e. for the play to begin 'style of hal 



pimple, young fellow -waiters 3 suit 



THOMAS DEKKER 



and your followers, your first compliment shall 
be to grow most inwardly acquainted with the 
drawers, to learn their names, as Jack, and 
Will, and Tom, to dive into their inclinations, 
as whether this fellow useth to the fencing 
school, this to the dancing school; whether 
that young conjurer (in hogsheads) at midnight 
keeps a gelding now and then to visit his cocka- 
trice, or whether he love dogs, or be addicted 
to any other eminent and citizen -like quality: 
and protest yourself to be extremely in love, 
and that you spend much money in a year, upon 
any one of those exercises which you perceive 
is followed by them. The use which you shall 
make of this familiarity is this: if you want 
money five or six days together, you may still 
pay the reckoning with this most gentlemanlike 
language, "Boy, fetch me money from the bar," 
and keep yourself most providently from a hun- 
gry melancholy in your chamber. Besides, you 
shall be sure (if there be but one faucet that can 
betray neat wine to the bar) to have that ar- 
raigned before you, sooner than a better and 
worthier person. 

The first question you are to make (after 
the discharging of your pocket of tobacco and 
pipes, and the household stuff thereto belong- 
ing) shall be for an inventory of the kitchen: 
for it were more than most tailor-like, and to 
be suspected you were in league with some 
kitchen-wench, to descend yourself, to offend 
your stomach with the sight of the larder, and 
happily x to grease your accoutrements. Hav- 
ing therefore received this bill, you shall (like 
a captain putting up dear pays) have many 
salads stand on your table, as it were for blanks 
to the other more serviceable dishes: and ac- 
cording to the time of the year, vary your fare, 
as capon is a stirring meat sometime, oysters 
are a swelling meat sometimes, trout a tickling 
meat sometimes, green goose and woodcock a 
delicate meat sometimes, especially in a tav- 
ern, where you shall sit in as great state as a 
church-warden amongst his poor parishioners, 
at Pentecost or Christmas. 

For your drink, let not your physician con- 
fine you to any one particular liquor: for as it 
is requisite that a gentleman should not always 
be plodding in one art, but rather be a general 
scholar (that is, to have a lick at all sorts of 
learning, and away) so 'tis not fitting a man 
should trouble his head with sucking at one 
grape, but that he may be able (now there is a 
general peace) to drink any stranger drunk in 



his own element of drink, or more properly in 
his own mist language. 

Your discourse at the table must be such as 
that which you utter at your ordinary: your 
behaviour the same, but somewhat more care- 
less: for where your expense is great, let your 
modesty be less: and, though you should be 
mad in a tavern, the largeness of the items will 
bear with your incivility: you may, without 
prick to your conscience, set the want of your 
wit against the superfluity and sauciness of 
their reckonings. 

If you desire not to be haunted with fiddlers 
(who by the statute have as much liberty as 
rogues to travel into any place, having the pass- 
port of the house about them) bring then no 
women along with you: but if you love the 
company of all the drawers, never sup without 
your cockatrice: for, having her there, you 
shall be sure of most officious attendance. In- 
quire what gallants sup in the next room, and 
if they be any of your acquaintance, do not 
you (after the city fashion) send them in a pottle 
of wine, and your name, sweetened in two 
pitiful papers of sugar, with some filthy apol- 
ogy crammed into the mouth of a drawer; but 
rather keep a boy in fee, who underhand shall 
proclaim you in every room, what a gallant 
fellow you are, how much you spend yearly in 
taverns, what a great gamester, what custom 
you bring to the house, in what witty discourse 
you maintain a table, what gentlewomen or 
citizens' wives you can with a wet finger 1 have 
at any time to sup with you, and such like. By 
which encomiastics of his, they that know you 
shall admire you, and think themselves to be 
brought into a paradise but to be meanly in 
your acquaintance; and if any of your en- 
deared friends be in the house, and beat the 
same ivy bush 2 that yourself does, you may join 
companies and be drunk together most publicly. 

But in such a deluge of drink, take heed that 
no man counterfeit himself drunk, to free his 
purse from the danger of the shot : 3 'tis a usual 
thing now among gentlemen; it had wont be 
the quality of cockneys: I would advise you to 
leave so much brains in your head as to pre- 
vent this. When the terrible reckoning (like 
an indictment) bids you hold up your hand, 
and that you must answer it at the bar, you 
must not abate one penny in any particular, no, 
though they reckon cheese to you, when you 
have neither eaten any, nor could ever abide it, 
raw or toasted: but cast your eye only upon 



1 haply, perchance 



1 easily 2 tavern sign a score, bill 



THE GULL'S HORNBOOK 



93 



the totalis, 1 and no further; for to traverse 
the bill would betray you to be acquainted 
with the rates of the market, nay more, it 
would make the vintners believe you were 
pater familias, and kept a house; which, I 
assure you, is not now in fashion. 

If you fall to dice after supper, let the drawers 
be as familiar with you as your barber, and 
venture their silver amongst you; no matter 
where they had it: you are to cherish the un- 
thriftiness of such young tame pigeons, if you 
be a right gentleman: for when two are yoked 
together by the purse strings, and draw the 
chariot of Madam Prodigality, when one faints 
in the way and slips his horns, let the other 
rejoice and laugh at him. 

At your departure forth the house, to kiss 
mine hostess over the bar, or to accept of the 
courtesy of the cellar when 'tis offered you by 
the drawers, and you must know that kindness 
never creeps upon them, but when they see you 
almost cleft to the shoulders, or to bid any of 
the vintners good night, is as commendable, 
as for a barber after trimming to lave your 
face with sweet water. 

To conclude, count it an honour, either to 
invite or be invited to any rifling : 2 for com- 
monly, though you find much satin there, yet 
you shall likewise find many citizens' sons, and 
heirs, and younger brothers there, who smell 
out such feasts more greedily than tailors hunt 
upon Sundays after weddings. And let any 
hook draw you either to a fencer's supper, or 
to a player's that acts such a part for a wager ; 
for by this means you shall get experience, by 
being guilty to their abominable shaving. 

CHAPTER VIII 
How a Gallant is to behave himself passing 

THROUGH THE ClTY, AT ALL HOURS OF THE 
NIGHT, AND HOW TO PASS BY ANY WATCH 

After the sound of pottle-pots is out of your 
ears, and that the spirit of wine and tobacco 
walks in your brain, the tavern door being shut 
upon your back, cast about to pass through 
the widest and goodliest streets in the city. 
And if your means cannot reach to the keeping 
of a boy, hire one of the drawers, to be as a 
lanthorne unto your feet, and to light you home : 
and, still 3 as you approach near any night- 
walker that is up as late as yourself curse and 
swear (like one that speaks High Dutch) in a 



lofty voice, because your men have used you 
so like a rascal in not waiting upon you, and 
vow the next morning to pull their blue cases ' 
over their ears, though, if your chamber were 
well searched, you give only sixpence a week 
to some old woman to make your bed, and 
that she is all the serving-creatures you give 
wages to. If you smell a watch (and that you 
may easily do, for commonly they eat onions to 
keep them in sleeping, which they account a 
medicine against cold) or, if you come within 
danger of their brown bills, let him that is 
your candlestick, and holds up your torch from 
dropping (for to march after a link is shoe- 
maker-like), let Ignis Fatuus, I say, being 
within the reach of the constable's staff, ask 
aloud, "Sir Giles," or "Sir Abram, will you 
turn this way, or down that street?" It skills 
not, though there be none dubbed in your 
bunch; the watch will wink at you, only for 
the love they bear to arms and knighthood: 
marry, if the sentinel and his court of guard 
stand strictly upon his martial law and cry 
" Stand," commanding you to give the word, and 
to show reason why your ghost walks so late, 
do it in some jest (for that will show you have 
a desperate wit, and perhaps make him and 
his halberdiers afraid to lay foul hands upon 
you) or, if you read a mittimus 2 in the con- 
stable's book, counterfeit to be a Frenchman, 
a Dutchman, or any other nation whose coun- 
try is in peace with your own; and you may 
pass the pikes: for being not able to under- 
stand you, they cannot by the customs of the 
city take your examination, and so by conse- 
quence they have nothing to say to you. 

All the way as you pass (especially being 
approached near some of the gates) talk of 
none but lords, and such ladies with whom you 
have played at primero, or danced in the pres- 
ence the very same day. It is a chance to 
lock up the lips of an inquisitive bell-man: 
and being arrived at your lodging door, which 
I would counsel you to choose in some rich 
citizen's house, salute at parting no man but 
by the name of Sir (as though you had supped 
with knights) albeit you had none in your 
company but your Perinado, or your ingle. 3 

Happily it will be blown abroad, that you 
and your shoal of gallants swum through such 
an ocean of wine, that you danced so much 
money out at heels, and that in wild fowl there 
flew away thus much: and I assure you, to 
have the bill of your reckoning lost of purpose, 



summa totalis, total 2 raffling 3 always 



1 coats 2 a warrant for arrest 3 chum 



94 



BEN JONSON 



so that it may be published, will make you to 
be held in dear estimation: only the danger 
is, if you owe money, and that your revealing 
gets your creditors by the ears; for then look 
to have a peal of ordnance thundering at your 
chamber door the next morning. But if either 
your tailor, mercer, haberdasher, silkman, 
cutter, linen draper, or sempster, stand like a 
guard of Switzers about your lodging, watch- 
ing your uprising, or, if they miss of that, 
your down lying in one of the counters, you 
have no means to avoid the galling of their 
small shot, than by sending out a light-horse- 
man to call your apothecary to your aid, who, 
encountering this desperate band of your 
creditors, only with two or three glasses in his 
hand, as though that day you purged, is able 
to drive them all to their holes like so many 
foxes: for the name of taking physic is a suffi- 
cient quietus est to any endangered gentleman, 
and gives an acquittance (for the time) to them 
all, though the twelve companies stand with 
their hoods to attend your coming forth and 
their officers with them. 

I could now fetch you about noon (the hour 
which I prescribed you before to rise at) out 
of your chamber, and carry you with me into 
Paul's Churchyard; where planting yourself 
in a stationer's shop, many instructions are to 
be given you, what books to call for, how to 
censure of new books, how to mew at the old, 
how to look in your tables and inquire for such 
and such Greek, French, Italian, or Spanish 
authors, whose names you have there, but 
whom your mother for pity would not give 
you so much wit as to understand. From 
thence you should blow yourself into the tobacco- 
ordinary, where you are likewise to spend your 
judgment (like a quack-salver) upon that mys- 
tical wonder, to be able to discourse whether 
your cane ' or your pudding 2 be sweetest, and 
which pipe has the best bore, and which burns 
black, which breaks in the burning, etc. Or, 
if you itch to step into the barber's, a whole 
dictionary cannot afford more words to set 
down notes what dialogues you are to maintain 
whilst you are doctor of the chair there. After 
your shaving, I could breathe you in a fence- 
school, and out of that cudgel you into a danc- 
ing school, in both which I could weary you, 
by showing you more tricks than are in five 
galleries, or fifteen prizes. And, to close up 
the stomach of this feast, I could make cock- 



neys, whose fathers have left them well, acknow- 
ledge themselves infinitely beholden to me, for 
teaching them by familiar demonstration how 
to spend their patrimony and to get themselves 
names, when their fathers are dead and rotten. 
But lest too many dishes should cast into a 
surfeit, I will now take away; yet so that, if 
I perceive you relish this well, the rest shall be 
(in time) prepared for you. Farewell. 

BEN JONSON (i573?-i6 3 7) 

TIMBER: OR DISCOVERIES MADE UPON 
MEN AND MATTER 

LXIV. DE SHAKESPEARE NOSTRATI l 

I remember the players have often mentioned 
it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his 
writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted 
out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he 
had blotted a thousand," which they thought a 
malevolent speech. I had not told posterity 
this but for their ignorance who chose that cir- 
cumstance to commend their friend by wherein 
he most faulted; and to justify mine own can- 
dour, for I loved the man, and do honour his 
memory on this side idolatry as much as any. 
He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free 
nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave no- 
tions, and gentle expressions, wherein he 
flowed with that facility that sometimes it was 
necessary he should be stopped. "Sufllaminan- 
dus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His 
wit was in his own power; would the rule of 
it had been so, too! Many times he fell into 
those things, could not escape laughter, as 
when he said in the person of Caesar, one 
speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong." 
He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but with 
just cause"; and such like, which were ridicu- 
lous. But he redeemed his vices with his vir- 
tues. There was ever more in him to be 
praised than to be pardoned. 

LXXI. DOMINUS VERULAMIUS 2 

One, though he be excellent and the chief, is 
not to be imitated alone; for never no imitator 
ever grew up to his author; likeness is always 
on this side truth. Yet there happened in my 
time one noble speaker who was full of gravity 
in his speaking ; his language, where he could 
spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. 



1 tobacco in rolls, like cigars 
a bag 



2 tobacco put up in 



1 on our fellow-countryman, Shakespeare 
Verulam (Francis Bacon) 



2 Lord 



TIMBER: OR DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER 



95 



No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, 1 
more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less 
idleness, in what he uttered. No member of 
his speech but consisted of his own graces. His 
hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, 
without loss. He commanded where he spoke, 
and had his judges angry and pleased at his 
devotion. No man had their affections more 
in his power. The fear of every man that 
heard him was lest he should make an end. 

C. DE BONIS ET MALIS; DE INNOCENTIA 2 

A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. 
The very aspersion is grievous, which makes 
him choose his way in his life as he would in 
his journey. The ill man rides through all 
confidently; he is coated and booted for it. 
The oftener he offends, the more openly, and 
the fouler, the fitter in fashion. His modesty, 
like a riding-coat, the more it is worn is the less 
cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, 
and the ways he travels in. An innocent man 
needs no eloquence, his innocence is instead of 
it, else I had never come off so many times from 
these precipices, whither men's malice hath 
pursued me. It is true I have been accused 
to the lords, to the king, and by great ones, but 
it happened my accusers had not thought of 
the accusation with themselves, and so were 
driven, for want of crimes, to use invention, 
which was found slander, or too late (being 
entered so far) to seek starting-holes for their 
rashness, which were not given them. And 
then they may think what accusation that was 
like to prove, when they that were the engineers 
feared to be the authors. Nor were they con- 
tent to feign things against me, but to urge 
things, feigned by the ignorant, against my 
profession, which though, from their hired and 
mercenary impudence, I might have passed by 
as granted to a nation of barkers that let out 
their tongues to lick others' sores; yet I durst 
not leave myself undefended, having a pair of 
ears unskilful to hear lies, or have those things 
said of me which I could truly prove of them. 
They objected making of verses to me, when I 
could object to most of them, their not being 
able to read them, but as worthy of scorn. Nay, 
they would offer to urge mine own writings 
against me, but by pieces (which was an excel- 
lent way of malice), as if any man's context 
might not seem dangerous and offensive, if that 
which was knit to what went before were de- 

1 compactly 2 on good things and bad, on inno- 



frauded of his beginning; or that things by 
themselves uttered might not seem subject to 
calumny, which read entire would appear most 
free. At last they upbraided my poverty: I 
confess she is my domestic; sober of diet, 
simple of habit, frugal, painful, a good coun- 
selor to me, that keeps me from cruelty, pride, 
or other more delicate impertinences, which are 
the nurse-children of riches. But let them look 
over all the great and monstrous wickednesses, 
they shall never find those in poor families. 
They are the issue of the wealthy giants and the 
mighty hunters, whereas no great work, or 
worthy of praise or memory, but came out of 
poor cradles. It was the ancient poverty that 
founded commonweals, built cities, invented 
arts, made wholesome laws, armed men against 
vices, rewarded them with their own virtues, 
and preserved the honour and state of nations, 
till they betrayed themselves to riches. 

CXV. DE STILO, ET OPTIMO SCRIBENDI 
GENERE 1 

For a man to write well, there are required 
three necessaries — to read the best authors, 
observe the best speakers, and much exercise 
of his own style. In style, to consider what 
ought to be written, and after what manner, he 
must first think and excogitate his matter, then 
choose his words, and examine the weight of 
either. Then take care, in placing and rank- 
ing both matter and words, that the composi- 
tion be comely; and to do this with diligence 
and often. No matter how slow the style be at 
first, so it be laboured and accurate; seek the 
best, and be not glad of the forward conceits, 
or first words, that offer themselves to us; but 
judge of what we invent, and order what we 
approve. Repeat often what we have formerly 
written; which beside that it helps the conse- 
quence, and makes the juncture better, it quick- 
ens the heat of imagination, that often cools in 
the time of setting down, and gives it new 
strength, as if it grew lustier by the going back. 
As we see in the contention of leaping, they 
jump farthest that fetch their race largest; or, 
as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back 
our arms to make our loose the stronger. Yet, 
if we have a fair gale of wind, I forbid not the 
steering out of our sail, so the favour of the 
gale deceive us not. For all that we invent 
doth please us in the conception of birth, else 
we would never set it down. But the safest is 
to return to our judgment, and handle over 

1 on style and the best manner of writing 



96 



BEN JONSON 



again those things the easiness of which might 
make them justly suspected. So did the best 
writers in their beginnings; they imposed upon 
themselves care and industry; they did noth- 
ing rashly: they obtained first to write well, 
and then custom made it easy and a habit. By 
little and little their matter showed itself to 
them more plentifully; their words answered, 
their composition followed; and all, as in a 
well-ordered family, presented itself in the 
place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing 
makes not good writing, but good writing brings 
on ready writing. Yet, when we think we 
have got the faculty, it is even then good to 
resist it, as to give a horse a check sometimes 
with a bit, which doth not so much stop his 
course as stir his mettle. Again, whither a 
man's genius is best able to reach, thither it 
should more and more contend, lift and dilate 
itself; as men of low stature raise themselves 
on their toes, and so oft-times get even, if not 



eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown and 
able writers to stand of themselves, and work 
with their own strength, to trust and endeavour 
by their own faculties, so it is fit for the beginner 
and learner to study others and the best. For 
the mind and memory are more sharply exer- 
cised in comprehending another man's things 
than our own; and such as accustom them- 
selves and are familiar with the best authors 
shall ever and anon find somewhat of them 
in themselves, and in the expression of their 
minds, even when they feel it not, be able 
to utter something like theirs, which hath 
an authority above their own. Nay, some- 
times it is the reward of a man's study, the 
praise of quoting another man fitly; and 
though a man be more prone and able for 
one kind of writing than another, yet he 
must exercise all. For as in an instrument, 
so in style, there must be a harmony in 
consent of parts. 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 



ROBERT BURTON (1577-1640) 

From THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY 

PART III. SEC. II. MEM. I. SUBS. I 

Heroical love causing Melancholy. His 
Pedigree, Power, and Extent 

In the preceding section mention was made, 
amongst other pleasant objects, of this come- 
liness and beauty which proceeds from women, 
that causeth heroical, or love-melancholy, is 
more eminent above the rest, and properly 
called love. The part affected in men is the 
liver, and therefore called heroical, because 
commonly gallants, noblemen, and the most 
generous spirits are possessed with it. His 
power and extent is very large, 1 and in that 
twofold division of love, </><AeiV and ipav, 2 
those two veneries 3 which Plato and some 
other make mention of, it is most eminent, 
and kolt i^oxrjv 4 called Venus, as I have said, 
or love itself. Which although it be denomi- 
nated from men, and most evident in them, 
yet it extends and shows itself in vegetal and 
sensible creatures, those incorporeal substances 
(as shall be specified), and hath a large domin- 
ion of sovereignty over them. His pedigree is 
very ancient, derived from the beginning of 
the world, as 5 Phaedrus contends, and his 
6 parentage of such antiquity, that no poet 
could ever find it out. Hesiod makes 7 Terra 
and Chaos to be Love's parents, before the gods 
were born : Ante deos omnes primum generavit 
amorem. ["Before all the gods, he first begat 
Love."] Some think it is the self-same fire 
Prometheus fetched from heaven. Plutarch, 
Amator. libello, will have Love to be the son of 
Iris and Favonius; but Socrates in that pleas- 
ant dialogue of Plato, when it came to his turn 
to speak of love (of which subject Agatho the 
rhetorician, magniloquus Agatho, that chanter 
Agatho, had newly given occasion), in a poetical 

1 Memb. i. Subs. 2. 2 Amor et amicitia. [Love 
and friendship.] 3 [loves] 4 [par excellence] 6 Phae- 
drus orat. in laudem amoris, Platonis convivio. 6 Vide 
Boccas. de genial, deorum. 7 [Earth.] See the moral 
in Plut. of that fiction. 



strain, telleth this tale: when Venus was born, 
all the gods were invited to a banquet, and 
amongst the rest, ' Porus the god of bounty 
and wealth ; Penia or Poverty came a-begging 
to the door; Porus well whittled with nectar 
(for there was no wine in those days) walking 
in Jupiter's garden, in a bower met with Penia, 
of whom was born Love; and because he 
was begotten on Venus's birthday, Venus still 
attends upon him. The moral of this is in 
2 Ficinus. Another tale is there borrowed out 
of Aristophanes: 3 in the beginning of the 
world, men had four arms and four feet, but 
for their pride, because they compared them- 
selves with the gods, were parted into halves, 
and now peradventure by love they hope to 
be united again and made one. Otherwise 
thus, 4 Vulcan met two lovers, and bid them 
ask what they would and they should have it; 
but they made answer, O Vulcane faber Deorum, 
etc., "O Vulcan the gods' great smith, we 
beseech thee to work us anew in thy furnace, 
and of two make us one; which he presently 
did, and ever since true lovers are either all 
one, or else desire to be united." Many such 
tales you shall find in Leon Hebraeus, Dial. 3, 
and their moral to them. The reason why 
Love was still painted young (as Phornutus 
6 and others will), " 6 is because young men are 
most apt to love; soft, fair, and fat, because 
such folks are soonest taken: naked, because 
all true affection is simple and open: he smiles, 
because merry and given to delights; hath a 
quiver, to show his power none can escape : is 
blind, because he sees not where he strikes, 
whom he hits," etc. His power and sover- 



1 Affluentias Deus. 2 Cap. 7. Comment, in 

Plat, convivium. 3 See more in Valesius, lib. 3, cont. 
med. et cont. 13. 4 Vives 3, de anima; oramus te 

ut tuis artibus et caminis nos refingas, et ex duobus 
unum facias ; quod et fecit, et exinde amatores unum 
sunt et unum esse petunt. 6 See more in Natalis 
Comes, Imag. Deorum; Philostratus de Imaginibus; 
Lilius Giraldus Syntag. de diis; Phornutus; etc. 
6 Juvenis pingitur quod amore plerumque juvenes 
capiuntur; sic et mollis, formosus; nudus, quod 
simplex et apertus hie affectus; ridet, quod oblecta- 
mentum pra; se ferat, cum pharetra, etc. 



97 



9 8 



ROBERT BURTON 



eignty is expressed by the ' poets, in that he 
is held to be a god, and a great commanding 
god, above Jupiter himself; Magnus Damon, 
as Plato calls him; the strongest and merriest 
of all the gods, according to Alcinous and 
2 Athenaeus; Amor virorum rex, amor rex et 
ileum, as Euripides, "the god of gods and 
governor of men;" for we must all do homage 
to him, keep a holiday for his deity, adore in 
his temples, worship his image (numen cnim 
hoc non est milium nomen [" For this god is not 
an empty name"]), and sacrifice to his altar, 
that conquers all, and rules all: 

" 3 Mallcm cum leone, cervo ct apro /Eolico, 
Cum Anteo et Stymphalicis avibus luctari 
Quam cum am ore." 

"I had rather contend with bulls, lions, bears, 
and giants, than with Love;" he is so power- 
ful, enforceth ' all to pay tribute to him, domi- 
neers over all, and can make mad and sober 
whom he list; insomuch that Caecilius in 
Tully's Tusculans, holds him to be no better 
than a fool or an idiot, that doth not acknow- 
ledge Love to be a great god. 

" 5 Cui in manu sit quern esse dementem velit, 
Quern sapere, quern in morbum injici," etc. 

That can make sick and cure whom he list. 
Homer and Stesichorus were both made blind, 
if you will believe 6 Leon Hebraeus, for speak- 
ing against his godhead; and though Aris- 
tophanes degrade him, and say that he was 
7 scornfully rejected from the council of the 
gods, had his wings clipped besides, that he 
might come no more amongst them, and to 
his farther disgrace banished heaven forever, 
and confined to dwell on earth, yet he is of 
that 8 power, majesty, omnipotency, and do- 
minion, that no creature can withstand him. 

" ° Imperat Cupido ctiam diis pro arbitrio, 

Et ipsum arcere ne armipotens potest Jupiter." 

He is more than quarter master with the gods : 

"... Tenet 
Thetide a;quor, umbras .Eaco, coclum Jove: " 10 

1 A petty Pope: "cloves habit siipcrorum ct iufcro- 
runt." as Orpheus, etc. -' Lib. 13, cap. 5. Dyphnoso. 
3 Plautus. 4 Regnat et in superos jus habet Ule deos 
["He rules ami has power over the high gods."] 
Ovid. 5 Selden pro. leg. 3, cap. de diis Syris. 
'Dial.?. 7 A concilio Deorum rejectus et ad majo- 
rem ejus ignominiam, etc. B Fulmine concitatior. 
["Swifter than lightning in the eollied sky."] 
"Sophocles. ["Love rules even the gods as he will, 
and Jove himself cannot restrain him."] 10 ["He 
divides the empire of the sea with Thetis, — of the 
Shades, with /Eacus, — of the Heaven, with Jove."] 



and hath not so much possession as dominion. 
Jupiter himself was turned into a satyr, shep- 
herd, a bull, a swan, a golden shower, and what 
not, for love; that as l Lucian's Juno right 
well objected to him, Indus amoris tit es, ''thou 
art Cupid's whirlgig": how did he insult over 
all the other gods, Mars, Neptune, Pan, Mer- 
cury, Bacchus, and the rest ! 2 Lucian brings 
in Jupiter complaining of Cupid that he could 
not be quiet for him; and the Moon lamenting 
that she was so impotently besotted on Endym- 
ion ; even Venus herself confessing as much, 
how rudely and in what sort her own son Cupid 
had used her being his mother, 3 "now drawing 
her to Mount Ida, for the love of that Trojan 
Anchises, now to Libanus for that Assyrian 
youth's sake. And although she threatened 
to break his bow and arrows, to clip his wings, 
' and whipped him besides with her pantophle, 
yet all would not serve, he was too headstrong 
and unruly." That monster-conquering Her- 
cules was tamed by him : 

"Quern non mille ferae, qucm non Sthcncleius hostis, 
Nee potuit Juno vinccre, vicit amor." 

"Whom neither beasts nor enemies could tame, 
Nor Juno's might subdue, Love quelled the same." 

Your bravest soldiers and most generous spirits 
are enervated with it, s ubi mitlicribus blanditiis 
permittunt se ct inquinantur amplexibus. Apollo, 
that took upon him to cure all diseases, 6 could 
not help himself of this; and therefore 'Soc- 
rates calls Love a tyrant, and brings him tri- 
umphing in a chariot, whom Petrarch imitates 
in his triumph of Love, and Fracastorius, in an 
elegant poem expressed! at large, Cupid riding, 
Mars and Apollo following his chariot, Psyche 
weeping, etc. 

In vegetal creatures what sovereignty love 
hath, by many pregnant proofs and familiar 
examples may be proved, especially of palm- 
trees, which are both he and she, and express 
not a sympathy but a love-passion, and by 
many observations have been confirmed. 

1 Tom. 4. 2 Dial. Deorum, torn. 3. s Quippe 
matrem ipsius quibus modis me albeit, mine in [dam 
adigens Anchisae causa, etc. 4 Jampridem et plagas 

ipsi in nates ineussi sandalio. 5 Altopilus, fol. 79. 
("When they give themselves up to the blandishments 
of women and are corrupted by their embraces."] 
e NuUis amor est medicabilis herbis. ["There is no 

herb that can cure l.ove."] 7 Plutarch in Amatorio. 
Dictator quo ereato eessant reliqui magistratus. ("A 
tyrant at whose creation other rulers cease."] 



THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY 



99 



" ' Vivunt in venercm frondes, omnisquc vicissim 
Felix arbor amat, nutant et mutua palmae 
Feed era, populeo suspirat populus ictu, 
Et platano platanus, alnoque assibilat alnus." 

Constantine, de Agric. lib. 10. cap. 4., gives 
an instance out of Florentius his Georgics, of a 
palm-tree that loved most fervently, " 2 and 
would not be comforted until such time her 
love applied himself unto her; you might see 
the two trees bend, and of their own accords 
stretch out their boughs to embrace and kiss 
each other: they will give manifest signs of 
mutual love." Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 24, 
reports that they marry one another, and fall 
in love if they grow in sight; and when the 
wind brings the smell to them they are marvel- 
lously affected. Philostratus, in Imaginibus, 
observes as much, and Galen, lib. 6. de locis 
affect is, cap. 5. They will be sick for love; 
ready to die and pine away, which the hus- 
bandmen perceiving, saith 3 Constantine, 
"stroke many palms that grow together, and 
so stroking again the palm that is enamoured, 
they carry kisses from the one to the other:" 
or tying the leaves and branches of the one to 
the stem of the other, will make them both 
flourish and prosper a great deal better: 
" * which are enamoured, they can perceive 
by the bending of boughs, and inclination of 
their bodies." If any man think this which I 
say to be a tale, let him read that story of 
two palm-trees in Italy, the male growing at 
Brundusium, the female at Otranto (related by 
Jovianus Pontanus in an excellent poem, 
sometimes tutor to Alphonsus junior, King 
of Naples, his secretary of state, and a great 
philosopher) "which were barren, and so 
continued a long time," till they came to see 
one another growing up higher, though many 
stadiums asunder. Pierius in his Hieroglyph- 
ics, and Melchior Guilandinus, Mem. 3. tract, 
de papyro, cites this story of Pontanus for a 
truth. See more in Salmuth, Comment, in 

1 Claudian. descript. verier, aulas. ["Trees are 
influenced by love, and every flourishing tree in turn 
feels the passion : palms nod mutual vows, poplar 
sighs to poplar, plane to plane, and alder breathes to 
alder."] 2 Ncque prius in iis desiderium cessat dum 
dejectus consoletur ; videre enim est ipsam arborem 
incurvatam, ultro ramis ab utrisque vicissim ad oscu- 
lum exporrectis : manifesta dant mutui desiderii signa. 
3 Multas palmas contingens quae simul crescunt, 
rursusque ad amantem regrediens, eamque manu 
attingens, quasi osculum mutuo ministrare videtur, et 
expediti concubitus gratiam facit. 4 Quam vero 
ipsa desideret affectu ramorum significat, et ad illam 
respicit: amantur, etc. 



Pancirol de Nova repert. Tit. 1 de novo orbe, 
Mizaldus Arcanorum, lib. 2., Sand's Voyages, 
lib. 2. jol. 103, etc. 

If such fury be in vegetals, what shall we 
think of sensible creatures, how much more 
violent and apparent shall it be in them ! 

" ' Omne adeo genus in terris hominumque ferarum, 
Et genus aequoreum, pecudes, pictasque volucres 
In furias ignemque ruunt; amor omnibus idem." 

"All kind of creatures in the earth, 
And fishes of the sea, 
And painted birds do rage alike; 
This love bears equal sway." 

" 2 Hic deus et terras et maria alta domat." 

Common experience and our sense will inform 
us how violently brute beasts are carried away 
with this passion, horses above the rest — 
furor est insignis equarum. 3 Cupid in 
Lucian bids Venus his mother "be of good 
cheer, for he was now familiar with lions, and 
oftentimes did get on their backs, hold them 
by the mane, and ride them about like horses, 
and they would fawn upon him with their 
tails." Bulls, bears, and boars are so furious 
in this kind they kill one another: but espe- 
cially cocks, 4 lions, and harts, which are so 
fierce that you may hear them fight half a mile 
off, saith 5 Turbervile, and many times kill 
each other, or compel them to abandon the 
rut, that they may remain masters in their 
places; "and when one hath driven his co- 
rival away, he raiseth his nose up into the air, 
and looks aloft, as though he gave thanks to 
nature," which affords him such great delight. 
How birds are affected in this kind, appears 
out of Aristotle, he will have them to sing ob 
fiituram venerem, for joy or in hope of their 
venery which is to come. 

" 6 /Eeria3 primum volucres te Diva, tuumque 
Significant initum, perculsae corda tua vi." 

"Fishes pine away for love and wax lean," if 
7 Gomesius's authority may be taken, and are 
rampant too, some of them: so love tyran- 

'Virg., 3 Georg. 2 Propertius: ["This god rules 
both the lands and the deep seas"]. 3 Dial, deorum 
Confide, mater, leonibus ipsis familiaris jam factus 
sum, et saspe conscendi eorum terga et apprehend 
jubas; equorum more insidens eos agito, et illi mihi 
caudis adblandiuntur. 4 Leones prae amore furunt 
Plin., 1. 8, c. 16, Arist, 1. 6, hist, animal. 8 Cap 
17, of his book of hunting. 6 Lucretius. 7 De sale. 
lib. 1, c. 21. Pisces ob amorem marcescunt, pal- 
lescunt, etc. 



IOO 



ROBERT BURTON 



niseth in dumb creatures. Yet this is natural 
for one beast to dote upon another of the same 
kind; but what strange fury is that, when a 
beast shall dote upon a man ? Saxo Gram- 
maticus, lib. 10, Dan. hist., hath a story of a 
bear that loved a woman, kept her in his den 
a long time, and begot a son of her, out of 
whose loins proceeded many northern kings: 
this is the original belike of that common 
tale of Valentine and Orson: /Elian, Pliny, 
Peter Gillius, are full of such relations. A 
peacock in Lucadia loved a maid, and when 
she died, the peacock pined. '"A dolphin 
loved a boy called Hernias, tod when he died 
the fish came on land, and so perished." The 
like adds Gillius, lib. 10. cap. 22, out of Appion, 
JEgypt. lib. 15: a dolphin at Puteoli loved a 
child, would come often to him, let him get 
on his back, and carry him about, " 2 and 
when by sickness the child was taken away, 
the dolphin died." — " 3 Every book is full 
(saith Busbequius, the emperor's orator with 
the grand signior, not long since, Ep. 3. legal. 
Tttre.) and yields such instances, to believe 
which I was always afraid, lest I should be 
thought to give credit to fables, until I saw a 
lynx which I had from Assyria, so affected 
towards one of my men, that it cannot be 
denied but that he was in love with him. 
When my man was present, the beast would 
use many notable enticements and pleasant 
motions, and when he was going, hold him 
back, and look after him when he was gone, 
very sad in his absence, but most jocund when 
he returned: and when my man went from me, 
the beast expressed his love with continual 
sickness, and after he had pined away some 
few days, died." Such another story he hath 
of a crane of Majorca, that loved a Spaniard, 
that would walk any way with him, and in his 
absence seek about for him, make a noise that 
he might hear her, and knock at his door, " 4 and 
when he took his last farewell, famished her- 
self." Such pretty pranks can love play with 
birds, fishes, beasts: 

'* Coclestis aethcris, ponti, terra? claves habet Venus, 
Solaquc istorum omnium imperium obtinct." 

1 Plin., 1. 10, c. 5, quumque, aborta tempestate, 
periisset Hernias, in sicco piscis expiravit. - Post- 
quam puer morbo abiit, et ipse delphinus periit. 

3 Pleni sunt libri quibus fera: in homines intlam- 
matas fucrunt, in quibus ego quidem semper assen- 
sum sustinui, veritus 110 fabulosa ereilerem; donee 
vidi lyncem quern habui ab Assyria sic affectum erga 
unum de meis hominibus, ete. 4 Desiderium suum 
testatus post inediam aliquot dierum interiit. 6 Or- 



and, if all be certain that is credibly reported, 
with the spirits of the air, and devils of hell 
themselves, who are as much enamoured and 
dote (if I may use that word) as any other 
creatures whatsoever. For if those stories be 
true that are written of incubus and succubus, 
of nymphs, lascivious fauns, satyrs, and those 
heathen gods which were devils, those lascivi- 
ous Telchines, of whom the Platonists tell so 
many fables; or those familiar meetings in 
our days, and company of witches and devils, 
there is some probability for it. I know that 
Biermannus, Wierus, lib. 3. cap. 19. ct 24, and 
some others stoutly deny it, they be mere 
fantasies, all such relations of incubi, succubi, 
lies and tales; but Austin, lib. 15. de civil. Dei, 
doth acknowledge it: Erastus, de Lamiis, 
Jacobus Sprenger and his colleagues, etc., 
1 Zanchius, cap. 16. lib. 4. dc opcr. Dei, Dan- 
dinus, in Arist. de Anima, lib. 2. text. 29. com. 
30, Bodin, lib. 2. cap. 7. and Paracelsus, a 
great champion of this tenet amongst the rest, 
which give sundry peculiar instances, by many 
testimonies, proofs, and confessions evince it. 
Hector Boethius, in his Scottish history, hath 
three or four such examples, which Cardan 
confirms out of him, lib. 16. cap. 43, of such as 
have had familiar company many years with 
them, and that in the habit of men and women. 
Philostratus in his fourth book dc vita April- 
lonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, 
which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, 
a young man twenty-five years of age, that going 
between Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a 
phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, 
which taking him by the hand carried him 
home to her house in the suburbs of Corinth, 
and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, 
and if he would tarry with her, " 2 he should 
hear her sing and play, and drink such wine 
as never any drank, and no man should molest 
him; but she being fair and lovely would live 
and die with him that was fair and lovely to 
behold." The young man, a philosopher, 
otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate 
his passions, though not this of love, tarried 
with her awhile to his great content, and at 

pheus hymno Yen.: ["Venus keeps the keys of the 
air, earth, sea, and she alone possesses the command 
of all."] 

1 Qui ha?c in atne bilis aut Imaginationis vim 
rcferre conati sunt, nihil faeiunt. [Those who have 
attempted to ascribe these things to the power of 
black bile or of imagination, do nothing.] ■ Can- 
tantem audies ct vinum bibes, quale antea nunquam 
bibisti; te rivalis turbabit nullus; pulchra autem 
pulchro contente vivam, et moriar. 



THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY 



IOI 



last married her, to whose wedding amongst 
other guests, came Apollonius, who, by some 
probable conjectures, found her out to be a 
serpent, a lamia, and that all her furniture was 
like Tantalus' gold described by Homer, no 
substance, but mere illusions. When she saw 
herself descried, she wept, and desired Apol- 
lonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, 
and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that 
was in it, vanished in an instant: "'many 
thousands took notice of this fact, for it was 
done in the midst of Greece." Sabine in his 
Comment on the tenth of Ovid's Metamor- 
phoses, at the tale of Orpheus, telleth us of a 
gentleman of Bavaria, that for many months 
together bewailed the loss of his dear wife; 
at length the devil in her habit came and com- 
forted him, and told him, because he was so im- 
portunate for her, that she would come and live 
with him again, on that condition he would be 
new married, never swear and blaspheme as he 
used formerly to do; for if he did, she should 
be gone: " 2 he vowed it, married, and lived 
with her; she brought him children, and gov- 
erned his house, but was still pale and sad, and 
so continued, till one day falling out with him, 
he fell a-swearing; she vanished thereupon, and 
was never after seen. 3 This I have heard," 
saith Sabine, "from persons of good credit, 
which told me that the Duke of Bavaria did 
tell it for a certainty to the Duke of Saxony." 
One more I will relate out of Florilegus, ad 
annum 1058, an honest historian of our nation, 
because he telleth it so confidently, as a thing 
in those days talked of all over Europe: a 
young gentleman of Rome, the same day that 
he was married, after dinner with the bride 
and his friends went a-walking into the fields, 
and towards evening to the tennis-court, to 
recreate himself; whilst he played, he put his 
ring upon the finger of Venus statua, which 
was thereby, made in brass; after he had 
sufficiently played, and now made an end of 
his sport, he came to fetch his ring, but Venus 
had bowed her finger in, and he could not get 
it off. Whereupon loth to make his company 
tarry at present, there left it, intending to fetch 
it the next day, or at some more convenient 
time, went thence to supper, and so to bed. In 
the night, when he should come to perform 
those nuptial rites, Venus steps between him 

1 Multi factum hoc cognovere, quod in media Graecia 
gestum sit. 2 Rem curans domesticam, ut ante 
pepcrit aliquot libcros, semper tamen tristis et pallida. 
3 Haec audivi a multis fide dignis qui asseverabant 
ducem Bavarian eadem rctulisse Duci Saxonias pro 
veris. 



and his wife (unseen or felt of her), and told 
him that she was his wife, that he had be- 
trothed himself unto her by that ring, which 
he put upon her finger: she troubled him for 
some following nights. He not knowing how 
to help himself, made his moan to one Palum- 
bus, a learned magician in those days, who 
gave him a letter, and bid him at such a time 
of the night, in such a cross-way, at the town's 
end, where old Saturn would pass by with his 
associates in procession, as commonly he did, 
deliver that script with his own hands to Saturn 
himself; the young man of a bold spirit, ac- 
cordingly did it; and when the old fiend had 
read it, he called Venus to him, who rode 
before him, and commanded her to deliver 
his ring, which forthwith she did, and so the 
gentleman was freed. Many such stories I 
find in several ' authors to confirm this which 
I have said ; as that more notable amongst the 
rest, of Philinium and Machates in 2 Phlegon's 
Tract, de rebus mirabilibus, and though many 
be against it, yet I, for my part, will subscribe 
to Lactantius, lib. 14. cap. 15: " 3 God sent 
angels to the tuition of men; but whilest they 
lived amongst us, that mischievous all-com- 
mander of the earth, and hot in lust, enticed 
them by little and little to this vice, and defiled 
them with the company of women": and 
Anaxagoras, de Resurrect., " 4 Many of those 
spiritual bodies, overcome by the love of maids 
and lust, failed, of whom those were born we 
call giants." Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexan- 
drinus, Sulpitius Severus, Eusebius, etc., to this 
sense make a twofold fall of angels, one from 
the beginning of the world, another a little be- 
fore the deluge, as Moses teacheth us. . . . 
Read more of this question in Plutarch, vit. 
Nunia;, Austin, dc Civ. Dei, lib. 15, Wierus, 
lib. 3 de prcestig Dam., Giraldus Cambrensis, 
itinerar. Canib. lib. 1, Malleus malefic, qwzst. 

5, part. 1, Jacobus Reussus-, lib. 5, cap. 6,/ol. 
54, Godelman, lib. 2, cap. 4, Erastus, Valesius, 
de sacra philo, cap. 40, John Nider, Fomicar. 
lib. 5, cap. 9, Stroz., Cicogna, lib. 3, cap. 3, 
Delrio, Lipsius, Bodine, dcemonol. lib. 2, cap. 7, 
Peverius, in Gen. lib. 8, in 6 cap. ver. 2, King 
James, etc. 

1 Fabula Damarati et Aristonis in Herodoto, lib. 

6, Erato. 2 Interpret. Mersio. 

3 Deus angclos misit ad tutelam cultumque generis 
humani ; sed illos cum hominibus commorantes, 
dominator ille terrae salacissimus paulatim ad vitia 
pellexit et mulierum congressibus inquinavit. 

4 Quidam ex illis capti sunt amore virginum, et 
libidine victi defeccrunt, ex quibus gigantes qui vocan- 
tur nati sunt. 



102 



THOMAS HOBBES 



THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679) 

LEVIATHAN 

PART I. CHAPTER XIII 

Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as 
concerning their felicity and misery 

Nature hath made men so equal, in the 
faculties of the body and mind; as that though 
there be found one man sometimes manifestly 
stronger in body, or of quicker mind than 
another, yet when all is reckoned together, 
the difference between man and man, is not so 
considerable, as that one man can thereupon 
claim to himself any benefit, to which another 
may not pretend, as well as he. For as to 
the strength of body, the weakest has strength 
enough to kill the strongest, either by secret 
machination, or by confederacy with others, 
that are in the same danger with himself. 

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting 
aside the arts grounded upon words, and es- 
pecially that skill of proceeding upon general 
and infallible rules, called science ; which very 
few have, and but in few things; as being not 
a native faculty, born with us; nor attained, 
as prudence, while we look after somewhat 
else, I find yet a greater equality amongst 
men than that of strength. For prudence 
is but experience; which equal time, equally 
bestows on all men, in those things they equally 
apply themselves unto. That which may 
perhaps make such equality incredible, is but 
a vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which 
almost all men think they have in a greater 
degree than the vulgar; that is, than all men 
but themselves, and a few others, whom by 
fame or for concurring with themselves, they 
approve. For such is the nature of men, that 
howsoever they may acknowledge many others 
to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more 
learned; yet they will hardly believe there be 
many so wise as themselves; for they see their 
own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. 
But this proveth rather that men are in that 
point equal, than unequal. For there is not 
ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribu- 
tion of anything, than that every man is 
contented with his share. 

From this equality of ability, ariseth equality 
of hope in the attaining of our ends. And 
therefore if any two men desire the same thing, 
which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, 
they become enemies; and in the way to their 



end, which is principally their own conserva- 
tion, and sometimes their delectation only, 
endeavour to destroy or subdue one another. 
And from hence it comes to pass, that where 
an invader hath no more to fear than another 
man's single power; if one plant, sow, build, or 
possess a convenient seat, others may proba- 
bly be expected to come prepared with forces 
united, to dispossess and deprive him, not only 
of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life or 
liberty. And the invader again is in the like 
danger of another. 

And from this diffidence of one another, 
there is no way for any man to secure himself, 
so reasonable, as anticipation ; that is, by 
force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men 
he can, so long, till he see no other power great 
enough to endanger him: and this is no more 
than his own conservation requireth, and is 
generally allowed. Also because there be 
some, that taking pleasure in contemplating 
their own power in the acts of conquest, which 
they pursue farther than their security requires; 
if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at 
ease within modest bounds, should not by in- 
vasion increase their power, they would not be 
able, long time, by standing only on their 
defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such 
augmentation of dominion over men being nec- 
essary to a man's conservation, it ought to be 
allowed him. 

Again, men have no pleasure, but on the con- 
trary a great deal of grief, in keeping 'company, 
where there is no power able to overawe them 
all. For every man looketh that his companion 
should value him, at the same rate he sets upon 
himself : and upon all signs of contempt, or 
undervaluing, naturally endeavours, as far as 
he dares, (which amongst them that have no 
common power to keep them in quiet, is far 
enough to make them destroy each other,) 
to extort a greater value from his contemners, 
by damage; and from others, by the example. 

So that in the nature of man, we find three 
principal causes of quarrel. First, competi- 
tion; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. 

The first maketh men invade for gain ; the 
second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. 
The first use violence, to make themselves 
masters of other men's persons, wives, children, 
and cattle; the second, to defend them; the 
third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different 
opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, 
either direct in their persons, or by reflection 
in their kindred, their friends, their nation, 
their profession, or their name. 



LEVIATHAN 



103 



Hereby it is manifest, that during the time 
men live without a common power to keep them 
all in awe, they are in that condition which is 
called war; and such a war, as is of every man, 
against every man. For "war" consisteth not 
in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a 
tract of time, wherein the will to contend by 
battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the 
notion of "time" is to be considered in the 
nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. 
For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a 
shower or two of rain, but in an inclination 
thereto of many days together; so the nature 
of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in 
the known disposition thereto during all the 
time there is no assurance to the contrary. 
All other time is "peace." 

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time 
of war, where every man is enemy to every man, 
the same is consequent to the time wherein 
men live without other security than what their 
own strength and their own invention shall 
furnish them withal. In such condition there 
is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof 
is uncertain, and consequently no culture of 
the earth; no navigation, nor use of the com- 
modities that may be imported by sea; no 
commodious building; no instruments of 
moving and removing such things as require 
much force; no knowledge of the face of the 
earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; 
no society; and, which is worst of all, continual 
fear and danger of violent death; and the life 
of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. 

It may seem strange to some man, that has 
not well weighed these things, that Nature 
should thus dissociate, and render men apt to 
invade and destroy one another; and he may 
therefore, not trusting to this inference, made 
from the passions, desire perhaps to have the 
same confirmed by experience. Let him there- 
fore consider with himself, when taking a 
journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well 
accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks 
his doors ; when even in his house, he locks his 
chests ; and this when he knows there be laws, 
and public officers, armed, to revenge all in- 
juries shall be done him; what opinion he has 
of his fellow-subjects, when he rides armed; 
of his fellow-citizens, when he locks his doors; 
and of his children and servants, when he locks 
his chests. Does he not there as much accuse 
mankind by his actions as I do by my words? 
But neither of us accuse man's nature in it. 
The desires and other passions of man are in 
themselves no sin. No more are the actions 



that proceed from those passions, till they know 
a law that forbids them ; which till laws be made, 
they cannot know, nor can any law be made till 
they have agreed upon the person that shall 
make it. 

It may peradventure be thought there was 
never such a time nor condition of war as this; 
and I believe it was never generally so, over 
all the world, but there are many places where 
they live so now. For the savage people in 
many places of America, except the government 
of small families, the concord whereof depend- 
eth on natural lust, have no government at all, 
and live at this day in that brutish manner, as 
I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived 
what manner of life there would be, where there 
were no common power to fear, by the manner 
of life which men that have formerly lived under 
a peaceful government, use to degenerate into 
in a civil war. 

But though there had never been any time, 
wherein particular men were in a condition of 
war one against another; yet in all times, 
kings, and persons of sovereign authority, 
because of their independency, are in continual 
jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladia- 
tors; having their weapons pointing, and their 
eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, 
garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their 
kingdoms; and continual spies upon their 
neighbours; which is a posture of war. But be- 
cause they uphold thereby the industry of their 
subjects; there does not follow from it that 
misery which accompanies the liberty of par- 
ticular men. 

To this war of every man, against every man, 
this also is consequent; that nothing can be 
unjust. The notions of right and wrong, 
justice and injustice, have there no place. 
Where there is no common power, there is no 
law: where no law, no injustice. Force and 
fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. 
Justice and injustice are none of the faculties 
neither of the body nor mind. If they were, 
they might be in a man that were alone in 
the world, as well as his senses, and passions. 
They are qualities that relate to men in society, 
not in solitude. It is consequent also to the 
same condition, that there be no propriety, 
no dominion, no "mine" and "thine" distinct; 
but only that to be every man's, that he can get ; 
and for so long, as he can keep it. And thus 
much for the ill condition, which man by mere 
nature is actually placed in ; though with a pos- 
sibility to come out of it, consisting partly in 
the passions, partly in his reason. 



104 



IZAAK WALTON 



The passions that incline men to peace, are 
fear of death; desire of such things as are 
necessary to commodious living; and a hope 
by their industry to obtain them. And reason 
suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon 
which men may be drawn to agreement. These 
articles are they which otherwise are called the 
Laws of Nature: whereof I shall speak more 
particularly, in the two following chapters. 

IZAAK WALTON (i 593-1683) 

THE COMPLETE ANGLER 

From THE FIRST DAY 

A Conference betwixt an Angler, a Fal- 
coner, and a Hunter, each commending 
his Recreation 

CHAPTER I. Piscator, 1 Venator, 2 Auceps 3 

Piscator. You are well overtaken, Gentle- 
men ! A good morning to you both ! I have 
stretched my legs up Tottenham Hill to over- 
take you, hoping your business may occasion 
you towards Ware, whither I am going this 
fine fresh May morning. 

Venator. Sir, I, for my part, shall almost 
answer your hopes; for my purpose is to 
drink my morning's draught at the Thatched 
House in Hoddesden; and I think not to rest 
till I come thither, where I have appointed a 
friend or two to meet me : but for this gentleman 
that you see with me, I know not how far he 
intends his journey; he came so lately into my 
company, that I have scarce had time to ask 
him the question. 

Auceps. Sir, I shall by your favour bear you 
company as far as Theobalds, and there leave 
you; for then I turn up to a friend's house, 
who mews a Hawk for me, which I now long to 
see. 

I 'cnator. Sir, we are all so happy as to have 
a fine, fresh, cool morning ; and I hope we shall 
each be the happier in the others' company. 
And, Gentlemen, that I may not lose yours, 
I shall either abate or amend my pace to enjoy 
it, knowing that, as the Italians say, "Good 
company in a journey makes the way to seem 
the shorter." 

Auceps. It may do, Sir, with the help of 
a good discourse, which, methinks, we may 
promise from you, that both look and speak 
so cheerfully: and for my part, I promise you, 
as an invitation to it, that I will be as free and 



open hearted as discretion will allow me to be 
with strangers. 

Venator. And, Sir, I promise the like. 

Piscator. I am right glad to hear your an- 
swers; and, in confidence you speak the truth, 
I shall put on a boldness to ask you, Sir, whether 
business or pleasure caused you to be so early 
up, and walk so fast ? for this other gentleman 
hath declared he is going to see a hawk, that 
a friend mews for him. 

Venator. Sir, mine is a mixture of both, a 
little business and more pleasure; for I intend 
this day to do all my business, and then bestow 
another day or two in hunting the Otter, which 
a friend, that I go to meet, tells me is much 
pleasanter than any other chase whatsoever: 
howsoever, I mean to try it; for to-morrow 
morning we shall meet a pack of Otter-dogs of 
noble Mr. Sadler's, upon Amwell Hill, who will 
be there so early, that they intend to prevent ' 
the sunrising. 

Piscator. Sir, my fortune has answered my 
desires, and my purpose is to bestow a day or 
two in helping to destroy some of those villain- 
ous vermin : for I hate them perfectly, because 
they love fish so well, or rather, because they 
destroy so much; indeed so much, that, in my 
judgment all men that keep Otter-dogs ought 
to have pensions from the King, to encourage 
them to destroy the very breed of those base 
Otters, they do so much mischief. 

I 'cnator. But what say you to the Foxes of the 
Nation? would not you as willingly have them 
destroyed? for doubtless they do as much 
mischief as Otters do. 

Piscator. Oh, Sir, if they do, it is not so 
much to me and my fraternity, as those base 
vermin the Otters do. 

Auceps. Why, Sir, I pray, of what fraternity 
are you, that you are so angry with the poor 
Otters? 

Piscator. I am, Sir, a Brother of the Angle, 
and therefore an enemy to the Otter: for you 
are to note, that we Anglers all love one another, 
and therefore do I hate the Otter both for my 
own, and their sakes who are of my brotherhood. 

Venator. And I am a lover of Hounds: I 
have followed many a pack of dogs many a 
mile, and heard many merry Huntsmen make 
sport and scoff at Anglers. 

Auceps. And I profess myself a Falconer, 
and have heard many grave, serious men pity 
them, it is such a heavy, contemptible, dull 
recreation. 



angler 



2 hunter 



3 falconer 



1 anticipate 



THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



io5 



Piscator. You know, Gentlemen, it is an 
easy thing to scoff at any art or recreation; 
a little wit mixed with ill-nature, confidence, 
and malice will do it; but though they often 
venture boldly, yet they are often caught, even 
in their own trap, according to that of Lucian, 
the father of the family of Scoffers: — 

Lucian, well skill'd in scoffing, this hath writ, 
Friend, that's your folly, which you think your wit : 
This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, 
Meaning another, when yourself you jeer. 

If to this you add what Solomon says of 
Scoffers, that they are an abomination to man- 
kind, let him that thinks fit scoff on, and be a 
Scoffer still; but I account them enemies to 
me and all that love Virtue and Angling. 

And for you that have heard many grave, 
serious men pity Anglers; let me tell you, Sir, 
there be many men that are by others taken 
to be serious and grave men, whom we contemn 
and pity. Men that are taken to be grave, 
because nature hath made them of a sour com- 
plexion; money-getting men, men that spend 
all their time, first in getting, and next, in anx- 
ious care to keep it; men that are condemned 
to be rich, and then always busy or discon- 
tented: for these poor rich men, we Anglers 
pity them perfectly, and stand in no need to 
borrow their thoughts to think ourselves so 
happy. No, no, Sir, we enjoy a contentedness 
above the reach of such dispositions, and as 
the learned and ingenuous Montaigne says, 
like himself, freely, "When my Cat and I 
entertain each other with mutual apish tricks, 
as playing with a garter, who knows but that 
I make my Cat more sport than she makes me ? 
Shall I conclude her to be simple, that has her 
time to begin or refuse, to play as freely as I 
myself have? Nay, who knows but that it is 
a defect of my not understanding her language, 
for doubtless Cats talk and reason with one 
another, that we agree no better: and who 
knows but that she pities me for being no wiser 
than to play with her, and laughs and censures 
my folly, for making sport for her, when we 
two play together?" 

Thus freely speaks Montaigne concerning 
Cats; and I hope I may take as great a liberty 
to blame any man, and laugh at him too, let 
him be never so grave, that hath not heard what 
Anglers can say in the justification of their 
Art and Recreation ; which I may again tell 
you, is so full of pleasure, that we need not 
borrow their thoughts, to think ourselves happy. 

Venator. Sir, you have almost amazed me; 



for though I am no Scoffer, yet I have, I pray 
let me speak it without offence, always looked 
upon Anglers, as more patient, and more 
simple men, than I fear I shall find you to be. 

Piscator. Sir, I hope you will not judge my 
earnestness to be impatience: and for my sim- 
plicity, if by that you mean a harmlessness, 
or that simplicity which was usually found in 
the primitive Christians, who were, as most 
Anglers are, quiet men, and followers of peace; 
men that were so simply wise, as not to sell their 
consciences to buy riches, and with them vexa- 
tion and a fear to die; if you mean such simple 
men as lived in those times when there were 
fewer lawyers; when men might have had a 
lordship safely conveyed to them in a piece 
of parchment no bigger than your hand, though 
several sheets will not do it safely in this wiser 
age; I say, Sir, if you take us Anglers to be 
such simple men as I have spoke of, then myself 
and those of my profession will be glad to be 
so understood: But if by simplicity you meant 
to express a general defect in those that profess 
and practise the excellent Art of Angling, I 
hope in time to disabuse you, and make the 
contrary appear so evidently, that if you will 
but have patience to hear me, I shall remove 
all the anticipations that discourse, or time, 
or prejudice, have possessed you with against 
that laudable and ancient Art; for I know it 
is worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise 
man. 

But, Gentlemen, though I be able to do this, 
I am not so unmannerly as to engross all the 
discourse to myself; and therefore, you two 
having declared yourselves, the one to be a 
lover of Hawks, the other of Hounds, I shall 
be most glad to hear what you can say in the 
commendation of that recreation which each 
of you love and practise ; and having heard what 
you can say, I shall be glad to exercise your 
attention with what I can say concerning my 
own recreation and Art of Angling, and by 
this means we shall make the way to seem the 
shorter: and if you like my motion, I would 
have Mr. Falconer to begin. 

Auceps. Your motion is consented to with 
all my heart; and to testify it, I will begin as 
you have desired me. 

And first for the Element that I use to trade 
in, which is the Air, an Element of more worth 
than weight, an element that doubtless exceeds 
both the Earth and Water; for though I some- 
times deal in both, yet the air is most properly 
mine, I and my Hawks use that most, and it 
yields us most recreation. It stops not the 



io6 



IZAAK WALTON 



high soaring of my noble generous Falcon; in 
it she ascends to such a height, as the dull eyes 
of beasts and fish are not able to reach to ; their 
bodies are too gross for such high elevations; 
in the Air my troops of Hawks soar up on high, 
and when they are lost in the sight of men, then 
they attend upon and converse with the Gods; 
therefore I think my Eagle is so justly styled 
Jove's servant in ordinary: and that very 
Falcon, that I am now going to see, deserves 
no meaner a title, for she usually in her flight 
endangers herself, like the son of Daedalus, 
to have her wings scorched by the sun's heat, 
she flies so near it, but her mettle makes her 
careless of danger; for she then heeds nothing, 
but makes her nimble pinions cut the fluid air, 
and so makes her highway over the steepest 
mountains and deepest rivers, and in her 
glorious career looks with contempt upon those 
high steeples and magnificent palaces which 
we adore and wonder at; from which height, 
I can make her to descend by a word from my 
mouth, which she both knows and obeys, to 
accept of meat from my hand, to own me for 
her Master, to go home with me, and be willing 
the next day to afford me the like recreation. 

And more; this element of air which I pro- 
fess to trade in, the worth of it is such, and it is 
of such necessity, that no creature whatsoever 
— not only those numerous creatures that feed 
on the face of the earth, but those various 
creatures that have their dwelling within the 
waters, every creature that hath life in its nos- 
trils, stands in need of my element. The waters 
cannot preserve the Fish without air, witness 
the not breaking of ice in an extreme frost; 
the reason is, for that if the inspiring and 
expiring organ of any animal be stopped, it 
suddenly yields to nature, and dies. Thus 
necessary is air, to the existence both of Fish 
and Beasts, nay, even to Man himself; that 
air, or breath of life, with which God at first 
inspired mankind, he, if he wants it, dies 
presently, becomes a sad object to all that 
loved and beheld him, and in an instant turns 
to putrefaction. 

Nay more; the very birds of the air, those 
that be not Hawks, are both so many and so 
useful and pleasant to mankind, that I must 
not let them pass without some observations. 
They both feed and refresh him; feed him 
with their choice bodies, and refresh him with 
their heavenly voices: — I will not undertake 
to mention the several kinds of Fowl by which 
this is done: and his curious palate pleased by 
day, and which with their very excrements 



afford him a soft lodging at night : — These I 
will pass by, but not those little nimble musi- 
cians of the air, that warble forth their curious 
ditties with which nature hath furnished them 
to the shame of art. 

As first the Lark, when she means to rejoice, 
to cheer herself and those that hear her; she 
then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends 
higher into the air, and having ended her 
heavenly employment, grows then mute, and 
sad, to think she must descend to the dull 
earth, which she would not touch, but for 
necessity. 

How do the Blackbird and Thrassel with their 
melodious voices bid welcome to the cheerful 
Spring, and in their fixed months warble forth 
such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to ! 

Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in 
their particular seasons, as namely the Lave- 
rock, the Tit-lark, the little Linnet, and the 
honest Robin that loves mankind both alive 
and dead. 

But the Nightingale, another of my airy crea- 
tures, breathes such sweet loud music out of 
her little instrumental throat, that it might 
make mankind to think miracles are not ceased. 
He that at midnight, when the very labourer 
sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very 
often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the 
natural rising and falling, the doubling and 
redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted 
above earth, and say, " Lord, what music hast 
thou provided for the Saints in Heaven, when 
thou affordest bad men such music on Earth !" 

And this makes me the less to wonder at the 
many Aviaries in Italy, or at the great charge 
of Varro's Aviary, the ruins of which are yet 
to be seen in Rome, and is still so famous there, 
that it is reckoned for one of those notables 
which men of foreign nations either record, 
or lay up in their memories when they return 
from travel. 

This for the birds of pleasure, of which very 
much more might be said. My next shall be 
of birds of political use. I think it is not to 
be doubted that Swallows have been taught 
to carry letters between two armies; but 'tis 
certain that when the Turks besieged Malta 
or Rhodes, I now remember not which it was, 
Pigeons are then related to carry and recarry 
letters: and Mr. G. Sandys, in his "Travels," 
relates it to be done betwixt Aleppo and Baby- 
lon. But if that be disbelieved, it is not to be 
doubled that the Dove was sent out of the ark 
by Noah, to give him notice of land, when to him 
all appeared to be sea; and the Dove proved 



THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



107 



a faithful and comfortable messenger. And 
for the sacrifices of the law, a pair of Turtle- 
doves, or young Pigeons, were as well accepted 
as costly Bulls and Rams; and when God 
would feed the Prophet Elijah, after a kind of 
miraculous manner, he did it by Ravens, who 
brought him meat morning and evening. 
Lastly, the Holy Ghost, when he descended 
visibly upon our Saviour, did it by assuming 
the shape of a Dove. And, to conclude this 
part of my discourse, pray remember these 
wonders were done by birds of the air, the 
element in which they, and I, take so much 
pleasure. 

There is also a little contemptible winged 
creature, an inhabitant of my aerial element, 
namely, the laborious Bee, of whose prudence, 
policy, and regular government of their own 
commonwealth, I might say much, as also of 
their several kinds, and how useful their honey 
and wax are both for meat and medicines to 
mankind; but I will leave them to their sweet 
labour, without the least disturbance, believing 
them to be all very busy at this very time 
amongst the herbs and flowers that we see 
nature puts forth this May morning. 

And now to return to my Hawks, from whom 
I have made too long a digression. You are 
to note, that they are usually distinguished into 
two kinds; namely, the long-winged, and the 
short-winged Hawk: of the first kind, there be 
chiefly in use amongst us in this nation, 

The Gerfalcon and Jerkin, 
The Falcon and Tassel-gentle, 
The Laner and Laneret, 
The Bockerel and Bockeret, 
The Saker and Sacaret, 
The Merlin and Jack Merlin, 
The Hobby and Jack: 

There is the Stelletto of Spain, 

The Blood-red Rook from Turkey, 
The Waskite from Virginia: 

And there is of short-winged Hawks, 

The Eagle and Iron, 
The Goshawk and Tarcel, 
The Sparhawk and Musket, 
The French Pye of two sorts: 

These are reckoned Hawks of note and worth; 
but we have also of an inferior rank, 

The Stanyel, the Ringtail, 
The Raven, the Buzzard, 
The Forked Kite, the Bald Buzzard, 
The Hen-driver, and others that I forbear 
to name. 



Gentlemen, if I should enlarge my discourse 
to the observation of the Eires, the Brancher, 
the Ramish Hawk, the Haggard, and the two 
sorts of Lentners, and then treat of their several 
Ayries, their Mewings, rare order of casting, 
and the renovation of their feathers: their 
reclaiming, dieting, and then come to their 
rare stories of practice ; I say, if I should enter 
into these, and many other observations that 
I could make, it would be much, very much 
pleasure to me : but lest I should break the rules 
of civility with you, by taking up more than the 
proportion of time allotted to me, I will here 
break off, and entreat you, Mr. Venator, to 
say what you are able in the commendation of 
Hunting, to which you are so much affected; 
and if time will serve, I will beg your favour 
for a further enlargement of some of those 
several heads of which I have spoken. But 
no more at present. 

Venator. Well, Sir, and I will now take my 
turn, and will first begin with a commendation 
of the Earth, as you have done most excellently 
of the Air; the Earth being that element upon 
which I drive my pleasant, wholesome, hungry 
trade. The Earth is a solid, settled element; 
an element most universally beneficial both to 
man and beast ; to men who have their several 
recreations upon it as horse-races, hunting, 
sweet smells, pleasant walks: the earth feeds 
man, and all those several beasts that both 
feed him, and afford him recreation. What 
pleasure doth man take in hunting the stately 
Stag, the generous Buck, the wild Boar, the 
cunning Otter, the crafty Fox, and the fearful 
Hare ! And if I may descend to a lower game, 
what pleasure is it sometimes with gins to betray 
the very vermin of the earth; as namely, the 
Fichat, the Fulimart, the Ferret, the Polecat, 
the Mouldwarp, and the like creatures, that 
live upon the face, and within the bowels of 
the Earth. How doth the Earth bring forth 
herbs, flowers, and fruits, both for physic and 
the pleasure of mankind ! and above all, to 
me at least, the fruitful vine, of which when 
I drink moderately, it clears my brain, cheers 
my heart, and sharpens my wit. How could 
Cleopatra have feasted Mark Antony with 
eight wild Boars roasted whole at one supper, 
and other meat suitable, if the earth had not 
been a bountiful mother? But to pass by the 
mighty Elephant, which the Earth breeds and 
nourisheth, and descend to the least of crea- 
tures, how doth the earth afford us a doctrinal 
example in the little Pismire, who in the sum- 
mer provides and lays up her winter provision, 



io8 



IZAAK WALTON 



and teaches man to do the like! The earth 
feeds and carries those horses that carry us. 
If 1 would he prodigal. of my time and your 
patience, what might not I say in commenda 
tions of the earth? That puis limits to the 
proud and raging sea, and by that means 
preserves both man and beast, that it destroys 
them not, as we See il daily doth those that 
venture upon the sea, and are there ship- 
wrecked, drowned, and left to feed Haddocks; 
when we that are so wise as to keep ourselves 
on earth, walk, and talk, and live, and eat, 
and drink, and go a hunting: of which recrea 
lion I will say a little and then leave Mr. Pis 
cator to the commendation of Angling. 

Hunting is a game for princes and noble 
persons; it hath been highly prized in all ages; 
ii was one of the qualifications that Xenophon 
bestowed on his Cyrus, that he was a hunter of 
wild beasts. Hunting trains up the younger 
nobility to the use of manly exercises in their 

riper age. What more manly exercise than 
hunting the Wild Boar, the Stag, the Buck, 
the Fox, or the Hare? How doth it preserve 

health, and increase strength and activity! 

And for tin- dogs that we use, who can com- 
mend their excellency to that height which they 
deserve? How perfect is the hound at smell- 
ing, who never leaves or forsakes his first scent 
hut follows it through so many changes and 
Varieties of other scents, even over, and in, the 
water, and into the earth! What music doth 
a pack of dogs then make to any man, whose 
heart and ears are so happy as to he set to the 
tune of such instruments! How will a right 
Greyhound lix his eye on the best Buck in a 
herd, single him out, and follow him, and him 
Only through a whole herd of rascal game, and 
still know and then kill him! For my hounds, 
1 know the language of them, and they know 
the language and meaning of one another, as 
perfectly as we know the voices of those with 
whom we discourse daily. 

I might enlarge myself in the commendation 
of Hunting, and of the noble Hound especially, 
as also of the docibleness of dogs in general; 
and 1 might make many observations of land- 
creatures, that for composition, order, figure, 
and constitution, approach nearest to the com 
pleteness and understanding of man ; especially 
of those creatures, which Moses in the Law 
permitted to the Jews, which have cloven 
hoot's, and chew the c\u\\ which 1 shall forbear 
lo name, because I will not be so uncivil to 
Mr. Piscator, as not to allow him a time for 
I he commendation of Angling, which he calls 



an art; but doubtless it is an easy one: and, 
Mr. Auccps, I doubt we shall hear a watery 
discourse of it, but I hope it will not be a long 
one. 

. I itrcps. And I hope so too, though I fear 
it will. 

Piscator. Gentlemen, let not prejudice pre- 
possess you. 1 confess my discourse is like 
to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and 
quiet; we seldom take the name of Clod into 
our mouths, but it is either to praise him, or 
pray to him: if others use it vainly in the midst 
of their recreations, so vainly as if they meanl 
to conjure, I must tell you, it is neither our 
fault nor our custom; we protest against it. 
Bui, pray remember, 1 accuse nobody; for 
as I would not make a "watery discourse," 
so I would not put too much vinegar into it; 
nor would I raise the reputation of my own 
ail, by the diminution or ruin of another's. 
And so much for the prologue to what I mean 
lo say. 

And now for the Water, the element that I 
trade in. The water is the eldest daughter of 
(he creation, the element upon which the Spirit 
of Cod did first move, the element which God 
commanded to bring forth living creatures 
abundantly; ami without which, those that 
inhabit the land, even all creatures that have 
breath in their nostrils, must suddenly return 
to putrefaction, Moses, the great lawgiver 
and chief philosopher, skilled in all the learning 
of the Egyptians, who was called the friend 
of God, and knew the mind of the Almighty, 
names this element the first in the creation : this 
is the element upon which the Spirit of God 
did first move, and is the chief ingredient in 
the creation: many philosophers have made 
it to comprehend all the other elements, and 
most allow it the chiefest in the mixtion of all 
living creatures. 

There be that profess to believe that all 
bodies are made of water, and may be reduced 
back again lo water only: they endeavour to 
demonstrate it thus: 

Take a willow, or any like speedy-growing 
plant, newly rooted in a box or barrel full of 
earth, weigh them all together exactly when 
the live begins to grow, and then weigh all 
together after the tree is increased from its 
first rooting, lo weigh a hundred pound weight 
more than when it was first rooted and weighed; 
and you shall find this augment of the tree to 
be without the diminution of one drachm 
weight of the earth. Hence they infer this 
increase of wood to be from water oi rain, or 



THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



109 



from dew, and not to be from any other ele- 
ment; and they affirm, they can reduce this 
wood back again to water; and they affirm 
also, the same may be done in any animal or 
vegetable. And this I take to be a fair testi- 
mony of the excellency of my element of water. 

The water is more productive than the earth. 
Nay, the earth hath no fruitfulness without 
showers or dews; for all the herbs, and (lowers, 
and fruit, are produced and thrive by the water; 
and the very minerals are fed by streams that 
run under ground, whose natural course carries 
them to the tops of many high mountains, as 
we see by several springs breaking forth on the 
tops of the highest hills; and this is also wit- 
nessed by the daily trial and testimony of 
several miners. 

Nay, the increase of those creatures that are 
bred and fed in the water are not only more 
and more miraculous, but more advantageous 
to man, not only for the lengthening of his 
life, but for the preventing of sickness; for it 
is observed by the most learned physicians, 
that the casting off of Lent, and other fish days, 
which hath not only given the lie to so many 
learned, pious, wise founders of colleges, for 
which we should be ashamed, hath doubtless 
been the chief cause of those many putrid, 
shaking intermitting agues, unto which this 
nation of ours is now more subject, than those 
wiser countries that feed on herbs, salads, 
and plenty of fish; of which it is observed in 
story, that the greatest part of the world now 
do. And it may be fit to remember that Moses 
appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best 
commonwealth that ever yet was. 

And it is observable, not only that there are 
fish, as, namely, the Whale, three times as big 
as the mighty Elephant, that is so fierce in battle, 
but that the mightiest feasts have been of fish. 
The Romans, in the height of their glory, have 
made fish the mistress of all their entertain- 
ments; they have had music to usher in their 
Sturgeons, Lampreys, and Mullets, which 
they would purchase at rates rather to be 
wondered at than believed. He that shall 
view the writings of Macrobius, or Varro, may 
be confirmed and informed of this, and of the 
incredible value of their fish and fish-ponds. 

Hut, Gentlemen, I have almost lost myself, 
which I confess I may easily do in this philo- 
sophical discourse; I met with most of it 
very lately, and I hope, happily, in a conference 
with a most learned physician, Dr. Wharton, 
a dear friend, that loves both me and my art 
of Angling. But, however, I will wade no 



deeper into these mysterious arguments, but 
pass to such observations as I can manage 
with more pleasure, and less fear of running 
into error. But I must not yet forsake the 
waters, by whose help we have so many known 
advantages. 

And first, to pass by the miraculous cures of 
our known baths, how advantageous is the sea 
for our daily traffic, without which we could not 
now subsist. How does it not only furnish us 
with food and physic for the bodies, but with 
such observations for the mind as ingenious 
persons would not want ! 

How ignorant had we been of the beauty of 
Florence, of the monuments, urns, and rarities 
that yet remain in and near unto Old and New 
Rome, so many as it is said will take up a year's 
time to view, and afford to each of them but a 
convenient consideration ! And therefore it is 
not to be wondered at that so learned and de- 
vout a father as St. Jerome, after his wish to 
have seen Christ in the flesh, and to have heard 
St. Paul preach, makes his third wish, to have 
seen Rome in her glory: and that glory is not 
yet all lost, for what pleasure is it to see the 
monuments of Livy, the choicest of the his- 
torians; of Tully, the best of orators; and to 
see the bay-trees that now grow out of the very 
tomb of Virgil ! These, to any that love learn- 
ing, must be pleasing. Hut what pleasure is it 
to a devout Christian to see there the humble 
house in which St. Paul was content to dwell, 
and to view the many rich statues that are made 
in honour of his memory ! Nay, to see the 
very place in which St. Peter and he lie buried 
together: These are in and near to Rome. 
And how much more doth it please the pious 
curiosity of a Christian to see that place on 
which the blessed Saviour of the world was 
pleased to humble himself, and to take our 
nature upon him, and to converse with men: 
to see Mount Sion, Jerusalem, and the very 
sepulchre of our Lord Jesus! How may it 
beget and heighten the zeal of a Christian, 
to see the devotions that are daily paid to him 
at that place ! Gentlemen, lest I forget my- 
self, I will stop here, and remember you, that 
but for my element of water, the inhabitants 
of this poor island must remain ignorant that 
such things ever were, or that any of them 
have yet a being. 

Gentlemen, I might both enlarge and lose 
myself in suchlike arguments. I might tell 
you that Almighty God is said to have spoken 
to a fish, but never to a beast; that he hath 
made a whale a ship, to carry and set his 



no 



IZAAK WALTON 



prophet, Jonah, safe on the appointed shore. 
Of these I might speak, but I must in manners 
break off, for I see Theobald's House. I cry 
you mercy for being so long, and thank you 
for your patience. 

Auceps. Sir, my pardon is easily granted 
you: I except against nothing that you have 
said : nevertheless, I must part with you at this 
park wall, for which I am very sorry; but I 
assure you, Mr. Piscator, I now part with you 
full of good thoughts, not only of yourself but 
your recreation. And so, Gentlemen, God 
keep you both. 

Piscator. Well now, Mr. Venator, you shall 
neither want time nor my attention to hear you 
enlarge your discourse concerning hunting. 

Venator. Not I, Sir: I remember you said 
that Angling itself was of great antiquity, and 
a perfect art, and an art not easily attained to; 
and you have so won upon me in your former 
discourse, that I am very desirous to hear what 
you can say further concerning those particu- 
lars. 

Piscator. Sir, I did say so : and I doubt not 
but if you and I did converse together but a 
few hours, to leave you possessed with the 
same high and happy thoughts that now pos- 
sess me of it; not only of the antiquity of 
Angling, but that it deserves commendations; 
and that it is an art, and an art worthy the 
knowledge and practice of a wise man. 

Venator. Pray, Sir, speak of them what you 
think fit, for we have yet five miles to the 
Thatched House; during which walk, I dare 
promise you, my patience and diligent atten- 
tion shall not be wanting. And if you shall 
make that to appear which you have under- 
taken, first, that it is an art, and an art worth 
the learning, I shall beg that I may attend you 
a day or two a-fishing, and that I may become 
your scholar, and be instructed in the art itself 
which you so much magnify. 

Piscator. O, Sir, doubt not but that Angling 
is an art; is it not an art to deceive a Trout 
with an artificial fly? a Trout! that is more 
sharp-sighted than any Hawk you have named, 
and more watchful and timorous than your 
high-mettled Merlin is bold? and yet I doubt 
not to catch a brace or two to-morrow for a 
friend's breakfast: doubt not, therefore, Sir, 
but that Angling is an art, and an art worth 
your learning. The question is rather, whether 
you be capable of learning it? for Angling is 
somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: 
I mean, with inclinations to it, though both 
may be heightened by discourse and practice: 



but he that hopes to be a good angler, must not 
only bring an inquiring, searching, observing 
wit, but he must bring a large measure of 
hope and patience, and a love and propensity 
to the art itself; but having once got and prac- 
tised it, then doubt not but Angling will prove 
to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be, like 
virtue, a reward to itself. 

Venator. Sir, I am now become so full of 
expectation, that I long much to have you pro- 
ceed, and in the order that you propose. 

Piscator. Then first, for the antiquity of 
Angling, of which I shall not say much, but 
only this; some say it is as ancient as Deuca- 
lion's flood: others, that Belus, who was the 
first inventor of godly and virtuous recreations, 
was the first inventor of Angling: and some 
others say, for former times have had their 
disquisitions about the antiquity of it, that 
Seth, one of the sons of Adam, taught it to his 
sons, and that by them it was derived to pos- 
terity: others say that he left it engraven on 
those pillars which he erected, and trusted to 
preserve the knowledge of the mathematics, 
music, and the rest of that precious knowledge, 
and those useful arts, which by God's appoint- 
ment or allowance, and his noble industry, 
were thereby preserved from perishing in 
Noah's flood. 

These, Sir, have been the opinions of several 
men, that have possibly endeavoured to make 
Angling more ancient than is needful, or may 
well be warranted; but for my part, I shall 
content myself in telling you that Angling is 
much more ancient than the incarnation of 
our Saviour; for in the Prophet Amos mention 
is made of fish-hooks; and in the Book of Job, 
which was long before the days of Amos, for 
that book is said to have been written by 
Moses, mention is made also of fish-hooks, 
which must imply anglers in those times. 

But, my worthy friend, as I would rather 
prove myself a gentleman, by being learned 
and humble, valiant and inoffensive, virtuous 
and communicable, than by any fond ostenta- 
tion of riches, or, wanting those virtues myself, 
boast that these were in my ancestors; and yet 
I grant, that where a noble and ancient descent 
and such merit meet in any man, it is a double 
dignification of that person ; so if this antiquity 
of Angling, which for my part I have not 
forced, shall, like an ancient family, be either 
an honour or an ornament to this virtuous art 
which I profess to love and practise, I shall be 
the gladder that I made an accidental mention 
of the antiquity of it, of which I shall say no 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE 



in 



more, but proceed to that just commendation 
which I think it deserves 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682) 

From RELIGIO MEDICI 

CHARITY 

I. Now for that other virtue of charity, with- 
out which faith is a mere notion, and of no ex- 
istence, I have ever endeavoured to nourish 
the merciful disposition and humane inclina- 
tion I borrowed from my parents, and regulate 
it to the written and prescribed laws of charity : 
and if I hold the true anatomy of myself, I am 
delineated and naturally framed to such a piece 
of virtue; for I am of a constitution so gen- 
eral, that it consorts and sympathised with 
all things: I have no antipathy, or rather idio- 
syncrasy, in diet, humour, air, anything. I 
wonder not at the French for their dishes of 
frogs, snails, and toadstools; nor at the Jews 
for locusts and grasshoppers; but being 
amongst them, make them my common viands, 
and I find they agree with my stomach as well 
as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a 
churchyard, as well as in a garden. I cannot 
start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, 
lizard, or salamander: at the sight of a toad or 
viper, I find in me no desire to take up a stone 
to destroy them. I feel not in myself those 
common antipathies that I can discover in 
others: those national repugnances do not 
touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the 
French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch : but where 
I find their actions in balance with my country- 
men's, I honour, love, and embrace them in 
the same degree. I was born in the eighth 
climate, but seem for to be framed and con- 
stellated unto all : I am no plant that will not 
prosper out of a garden; all places, all airs, 
make unto me one country; I am in England, 
everywhere, and under any meridian; I have 
been shipwrecked, yet am not enemy with the 
sea or winds; I can study, play, or sleep in a 
tempest. In brief, I am averse from nothing: 
my conscience would give me the lie if I should 
absolutely detest or hate any essence but the 
devil; or so at least abhor anything, but that 
we might come to composition. If there be 
any among those common objects of hatred 
I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great 
enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the 
multitude: that numerous piece of monstros- 
ity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the 



reasonable creatures of God; but confused 
together, make but one great beast, and a mon- 
strosity more prodigious than Hydra: it is no 
breach of charity to call these fools; it is the 
style all holy writers have afforded them, set 
down by Solomon in canonical Scripture, and 
a point of our faith to believe so. Neither in 
the name of multitude do I only include the 
base and minor sort of people ; there is a rabble 
even amongst the gentry, a sort of plebeian 
heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel 
as these; men in the same level with me- 
chanics, though their fortunes do somewhat 
gild their infirmities, and their purses compound 
for their follies. But as in casting account, 
three or four men together come short in ac- 
count of one man placed by himself below them ; 
so neither are a troop of these ignorant Dora- 
does ' of that true esteem and value, as many a 
forlorn person, whose condition doth place him 
below their feet. Let us speak like politicians : 2 
there is a nobility without heraldry, a natural 
dignity, whereby one man is ranked with 
another, another filed before him, according 
to the quality of his desert, and preeminence 
of his good parts. Though the corruption of 
these times and the bias of present practice 
wheel another way, thus it was in the first and 
primitive commonwealths, and is yet in the 
integrity and cradle of well-ordered polities, 
till corruption getteth ground; ruder desires 
labouring after that which wiser considerations 
contemn, every one having a liberty to amass 
and heap up riches, and they a license or 
faculty to do or purchase anything. 

II. This general and indifferent temper of 
mine doth more nearly dispose me to this 
noble virtue. It is a happiness to be born and 
framed unto virtue, and to grow up from the 
seeds of nature, rather than the inoculation and 
forced graff 3 of education : yet if we are di- 
rected only by our particular natures, and 
regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than 
that of our reasons, we are but moralists; divin- 
ity will still call us heathens. Therefore this 
great work of charity must have other motives, 
ends, and impulsions. I give no alms to satisfy 
the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and 
accomplish the will and command of my God : 
I draw not my purse for his sake that demands 
it, but His that enjoined it: I relieve no man 
upon the rhetoric of his miseries, nor to content 
mine own commiserating disposition; for this 

1 gilded ones 2 men who understand the organi- 
zation of society 3 grafting 



112 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE 



is still but moral charity, and an act that oweth 
more to passion than reason. He that relieves 
another upon the bare suggestion and bowels 
of pity, doth not this so much for his sake 
as for his own; for by compassion we make 
others' misery our own, and so, by relieving 
them, we relieve ourselves also. It is as 
erroneous a conceit to redress other men's mis- 
fortunes upon the common consideration of 
merciful natures, that it may be one day our 
own case; for this is a sinister and politic kind 
of charity, whereby we seem to bespeak the 
pities of men in the like occasions. And truly 
I have observed that those professed eleemosy- 
naries, though in a crowd of multitude, do 
yet direct and place their petitions on a few and 
selected persons : there is surely a physiognomy, 
which those experienced and master mendi- 
cants observe, whereby they instantly dis- 
cover a merciful aspect, and will single- out a 
face wherein they spy the signatures and marks 
of mercy. For there are mystically in our faces 
certain characters which carry in them the motto 
of our souls, wherein he that cannot read ABC 
may read our natures. I hold, moreover, that 
there is a phytognomy, or physiognomy, not 
only of men, but of plants and vegetables: 
and in every one of them some outward figures 
which hang as signs or bushes of their inward 
forms. The finger of God hath left an inscrip- 
tion upon all his works, not graphical or com- 
posed of letters, but of their several forms, con- 
stitutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly 
joined together, do make one word that doth 
express their natures. By these letters God 
calls the stars by their names; and by this 
alphabet Adam assigned to every creature a 
name peculiar to its nature. Now there are, 
besides these characters in our faces, certain 
mystical figures in our hands, which I dare not 
call mere dashes, strokes a la volee, or at ran- 
dom, because delineated by a pencil that never 
works in vain; and hereof I take more par- 
ticular notice, because I carry that in mine 
own hand which I could never read of nor dis- 
cover in another. Aristotle, I confess, in his 
acute and singular book of physiognomy, hath 
made no mention of chiromancy; yet I believe 
the Egyptians, who were nearer addicted to 
those abstruse and mystical sciences, had a 
knowledge therein, to which those vagabond 
and counterfeit Egyptians did after pretend, 
and perhaps retained a few corrupted prin- 
ciples, which sometimes might verify their 
prognostics. 
It is the common wonder of all men, how 



among so many millions of faces there should 
be none alike. Now, contrary, I wonder as 
much how there should be any: he that shall 
consider how many thousand several words 
have been carelessly and without study com- 
posed out of twenty-four letters; withal, how 
many hundred lines there are to be drawn in 
the fabric of one man, shall easily find that 
this variety is necessary; and it will be very 
hard that they shall so concur as to make one 
portrait like another. Let a painter carelessly 
limn out a million of faces, and you shall find 
them all different; yea, let him have his copy 
before him, yet after all his art there will re- 
main a sensible distinction; for the pattern or 
example of everything is the perfectest in that 
kind, whereof we still come short, though we 
transcend or go beyond it, because herein it is 
wide, and agrees not in all points unto its copy. 
Nor doth the similitude of creatures disparage 
the variety of nature, nor any way confound 
the works of God. For even in things alike 
there is diversity; and those that do seem to 
accord do manifestly disagree. And thus is 
man like God; for in the same things that we 
resemble him, we are utterly different from 
him. There was never anything so like another 
as in all points to concur: there will ever some 
reserved difference slip in, to prevent the iden- 
tity, without which two several things would 
not be alike, but the same, which is impossible. 
III. But to return from philosophy to char- 
ity: I hold not so narrow a conceit of this virtue, 
as to conceive that to give alms is only to be 
charitable, or think a piece of liberality can 
comprehend the total of charity. Divinity 
hath wisely divided the act thereof into many 
branches, and hath taught us in this narrow 
way many paths unto goodness; as many ways 
as we may do good, so many ways we may be 
charitable: there are infirmities not only of 
body, but of soul, and fortunes, which do re- 
quire the merciful hand of our abilities. I 
cannot contemn a man for ignorance, but 
behold him with as much pity as I do Lazarus. 
It is no greater charity to clothe his body, 
than apparel the nakedness of his soul. It is 
an honourable object to see the reasons of other 
men wear our liveries, and their borrowed 
understandings do homage to the bounty of 
ours: it is the cheapest way of beneficence, 
and, like the natural charity of the sun, illumi- 
nates another without obscuring itself. To be 
reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness, is 
the sordidest piece of covetousness, and more 
contemptible than pecuniary avarice. To this 



CHARITY 



IJ 3 



(as calling myself a scholar) I am obliged by 
the duty of my condition : I make not therefore 
my head a grave, but a treasury of knowledge : 
I intend no monopoly, but a community in 
learning: I study not for my own sake only, 
but for theirs that study not for themselves. I 
envy no man that knows more than myself, but 
pity them that know less. I instruct no man as 
an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent 
rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own 
head than beget and propagate it in his: and 
in the midst of all my endeavours, there is but 
one thought that dejects me, that my acquired 
parts must perish with myself, nor can be 
legacied among my honoured friends. I can- 
not fall out or contemn a man for an error, or 
conceive why a difference in opinion should 
divide an affection ; for controversies, disputes, 
and argumentations, both in philosophy and in 
divinity, if they meet with discreet and peace- 
able natures, do not infringe the laws of char- 
ity. In all disputes, so much as there is of 
passion, so much there is of nothing to the pur- 
pose; for then reason, like a bad hound, spends 
upon a false scent, and forsakes the question first 
started. And in this is one reason why con- 
troversies are never determined; for though 
they be amply proposed, they are scarce at all 
handled; they do so swell with unnecessary 
digressions, and the parenthesis on the party is 
often as large as the main discourse upon the 
subject. The foundations of religion are 
already established, and the principles of sal- 
vation subscribed unto by all: there remain 
not many controversies worth a passion; and 
yet never any disputed without, not only in di- 
vinity, but inferior arts. What a ^arpaxofxvo- 
ixax^a ' and hot skirmish is betwixt S and T in 
Lucian ? 2 How do grammarians hack and 
slash for the genitive case in Jupiter ! How 
they do break their own pates to salve that of 
Priscian ! Siforet in terris, riderct Democritus? 
Yea, even amongst wiser militants, how many 
wounds have been given, and credits slain, for 
the poor victory of an opinion, or beggarly 
conquest of a distinction ! Scholars are men 
of peace, they bear no arms, but their tongues 
are sharper than Actius his razor; their pens 
carry farther, and give a louder report than 
thunder: I had rather stand in the shock of a 
basilisco, than in the fury of a merciless pen. 

1 Battle of Frogs and Mice 2 Lucian represents 
Sigma as complaining that Tau has usurped his 
place in many words. 3 If Democritus were on earth, 
he would laugh at them. 



It is not mere zeal to learning, or devotion to 
the Muses, that wiser princes patron the arts, 
and carry an indulgent aspect unto scholars; 
but a desire to have their names eternised by 
the memory of their writings, and a fear of the 
revengeful pen of succeeding ages; for these 
are the men that, when they have played their 
parts and had their exits, must step out and 
give the moral of their scenes, and deliver unto 
posterity an inventory of their virtues and vices. 
And surely there goes a great deal of conscience 
to the compiling of an history: there is no 
reproach to the scandal of a story; it is such 
an authentic kind of falsehood that with author- 
ity belies our good names to all nations and 
posterity. 

IV. There is another offence unto charity, 
which no author hath ever written of, and few 
take notice of; and that's the reproach, not of 
whole professions, mysteries, and conditions, 
but of whole nations, wherein by opprobrious 
epithets we miscall each other, and by an un- 
charitable logic, from a disposition in a few, 
conclude a habit in all. St. Paul, that calls 
the Cretans liars, doth it but indirectly, and 
upon quotation of their own poet. It is as 
bloody a thought in one way, as Nero's was in 
another; for by a word we wound a thousand, 
and at one blow assasine the honour of a nation. 
It is as complete a piece of madness to miscall 
and rave against the times, or think to recall 
men to reason by a fit of passion. Democritus, 
that thought to laugh the times into goodness, 
seems to me as deeply hypochondriac as Her- 
aclitus that bewailed them. It moves not my 
spleen to behold the multitude in their proper 
humours, that is, in their fits of folly and mad- 
ness; as well understanding that wisdom is 
not profaned unto the world, and 'tis the 
privilege of a few to be virtuous. They that 
endeavour to abolish vice, destroy also virtue; 
for contraries, though they destroy one another, 
are yet the life of one another. Thus virtue 
(abolish vice) is an idea. Again, the com- 
munity of sin doth not disparage goodness; 
for when vice gains upon the major part, virtue, 
in whom it remains, becomes more excellent; 
and being lost in some, multiplies its goodness 
in others which remain untouched, and per- 
sists entire in the general inundation. I can 
therefore behold vice without a satire, content 
only with an admonition, or instructive repre- 
hension; for noble natures, and such as are 
capable of goodness, are railed into vice, that 
might as easily be admonished into virtue ; and 
we should be all so far the orators of goodness, 



U4 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE 



as to protect her from the power of vice, and 
maintain the cause of injured truth. No man 
can justly censure or condemn another, because 
indeed no man truly knows another. This I 
perceive in myself; for I am in the dark to all 
the world, and my nearest friends behold me but 
in a cloud: those that know me but super- 
ficially, think less of me than I do of myself; 
those of my near acquaintance think more. 
God, who truly knows me, knows that I am 
nothing; for He only beholds me and all the 
world, who looks not on us through a derived 
ray, or a trajcction of a sensible species, but 
beholds the substance without the help of acci- 
dents, and the forms of things as we their opera- 
tions. Further, no man can judge another, 
because no man knows himself: for we cen- 
sure others but as they disagree from that 
humour which we fancy laudable in ourselves, 
and commend others but for that wherein they 
seem to quadrate and consent with us. So 
that in conclusion, all is but that we all con- 
demn, self-love. 'Tis the general complaint 
of these times, and perhaps of those past, that 
charity grows cold; which I perceive most 
verified in those which most do manifest the 
fires and flames of zeal; for it is a virtue that 
best agrees with coldest natures, and such as 
are complexioned for humility. But how shall 
we expect charity towards others, when we are 
uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at 
home, is the voice of the world; yet is every 
man his greatest enemy, and as it were his 
own executioner. Non occides, 1 is the com- 
mandment of God, yet scarce observed by 
any man ; for I perceive every man is his own 
Atropos, and lends a hand to cut the thread 
of his own days. Cain was not therefore the 
first murderer, but Adam, who brought in 
death; whereof he beheld the practice and ex- 
ample in his own son Abel, and saw that veri- 
fied in the experience of another, which faith 
could not persuade him in the theory of him- 
self. 

V. There is, I think, no man that appre- 
hendeth his own miseries less than myself, and 
no man that so nearly apprehends another's. 
I could lose an arm without a tear, and with 
few groans, methinks, be quartered into pieces; 
yet can I weep most seriously at a play, and 
receive with a true passion the counterfeit 
griefs of those known and professed impostures. 
It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add 
unto any afflicted party's misery, or endeavour 

1 Thou shalt not kill. 



to multiply in any man a passion whose single 
nature is already above his patience: this was 
the greatest affliction of Job; and those ob- 
lique expostulations of his friends, a deeper 
injury than the downright blows of the devil. 
It is not the tears of our own eyes only, but of 
our friends also, that do exhaust the current of 
our sorrows; which falling into many streams, 
runs more peaceably, and is contented with a 
narrower channel. It is an act within the power 
of charity, to translate a passion out of one 
breast into another, and to divide a sorrow 
almost out of itself; for an affliction, like a 
dimension, may be so divided, as, if not in- 
visible, at least to become insensible. Now 
with my friend I desire not to share or partici- 
pate, but to engross his sorrows, that, by mak- 
ing them mine own, I may more easily discuss 
them; for in mine own reason, and within my- 
self, I can command that which I cannot in- 
treat without myself, and within the circle of 
another. I have often thought those noble 
pairs and examples of friendship not so truly 
histories of what had been, as fictions of what 
should be ; but I now perceive nothing in them 
but possibilities, nor anything in the heroic 
examples of Damon and Pythias, Achilles and 
Patroclus, which methinks upon some grounds 
I could not perform within the narrow compass 
of myself. That a man should lay down his 
life for his friend, seems strange to vulgar af- 
fections, and such as confine themselves within 
that worldly principle, Charity begins at home. 
For mine own part, I could never remember 
the relations that I held unto myself, nor the 
respect that I owe unto my own nature, in the 
cause of God, my country, and my friends. 
Next to these three, I do embrace myself. I 
confess I do not observe that order that the 
schools ordain our affections, to love our 
parents, wives, children, and then our friends; 
for excepting the injunctions of religion, I do 
not find in myself such a necessary and in- 
dissoluble sympathy to all those of my blood. 
I hope I do not break the fifth commandment, 
if I conceive I may love my friend before the 
nearest of my blood, even those to whom I owe 
the principles of life; I never yet cast a true 
affection on a woman ; but I have loved my 
friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God. From 
hence methinks I do conceive how God loves 
man, what happiness there is in the love of 
God. Omitting all other, there are three most 
mystical unions; two natures in one person; 
three persons in one nature; one soul in two 
bodies. For though indeed they be really 



HYDRIOTAPHIA: URN-BURIAL 



"5 



divided, yet are they so united as they seem but 
one, and make rather a duality than two dis- 
tinct souls. . . . 



HYDRIOTAPHIA: URN-BURIAL 

CHAPTER V 

Now, since these dead bones have already 
outlasted the living ones of Methuselah, and, 
in a yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, 
outworn all the strong and specious buildings 
above it, and quietly rested under the drums 
and tramplings of three conquests; what prince 
can promise such diuturnity unto his relics, or 
might not gladly say, 

"Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim." 1 

Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath 
an art to make dust of all things, hath yet 
spared these minor monuments. In vain we 
hope to be known by open and visible con- 
servatories, when to be unknown was the means 
of their continuation, and obscurity their pro- 
tection. 

If they died by violent hands, and were 
thrust into their urns, these bones become 
considerable, and some old philosophers would 
honour them, whose souls they conceived most 
pure, which were thus snatched from their 
bodies, and to retain a stronger propension 
unto them; whereas, they weariedly left a 
languishing corpse, and with faint desires of 
reunion. If they fell by long and aged decay, 
yet wrapped up in the bundle of time, they 
fall into indistinction, and make but one blot 
with infants. If we begin to die when we live, 
and long life be but a prolongation of death, 
our life is a sad composition; we live with 
death, and die not in a moment. How many 
pulses made up the life of Methuselah, were 
work for Archimedes. Common counters sum 
up the life of Moses's man. Our days become 
considerable, like petty sums by minute ac- 
cumulations, where numerous fractions make 
up but small round numbers, and our days 
of a span long make not one little finger. 

If the nearness of our last necessity brought 
a nearer conformity unto it, there were a hap- 
piness in hoary hairs, and no calamity in half 
senses. But the long habit of living indispos- 
eth us for dying; when avarice makes us the 
sport of death; when even David grew politi- 
cally cruel; and Solomon could hardly be 

1 Would that I were turned into bones ! 



said to be the wisest of men. But many are 
too early old, and before the date of age. 
Adversity stretcheth our days, misery makes 
Alcmena's nights, and time hath no wings 
unto it. But the most tedious being is that 
which can unwish itself, content to be noth- 
ing, or never to have been; which was beyond 
the malecontent of Job, who cursed not the 
day of his life, but his nativity, content to have 
so far been as to have a title to future being, 
although he had lived here but in a hidden 
state of life, and as it were an abortion. 

What song the Sirens sang, or what name 
Achilles assumed when he hid himself among 
women, though puzzling questions, are not be- 
yond all conjecture. What time the persons 
of these ossuaries entered the famous nations 
of the dead, and slept with princes and coun- 
sellors, might admit a wide solution. But 
who were the proprietaries of these bones, or 
what bodies these ashes made up, were a ques- 
tion above antiquarianism; not to be resolved 
by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except 
we consult the provincial guardians or tutelary 
observators. Had they made as good provi- 
sion for their names as they have done for their 
relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art 
of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and 
be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in du- 
ration. Vain ashes, which in the oblivion of 
names, persons, times, and sexes, have found 
unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and 
only arise unto late posterity, as emblems of 
mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vain- 
glory, and madding vices. Pagan vainglories, 
which thought the world might last forever, 
had encouragement for ambition; and finding 
no Atropos unto the immortality of their names, 
were never damped with the necessity of obliv- 
ion. Even old ambitions had the advantage 
of ours, in the attempts of their vainglories, 
who, acting early, and before the probable 
meridian of time, have by this time found great 
accomplishment of their designs, whereby the 
ancient heroes have already outlasted their 
monuments and mechanical preservations. 
But in this latter scene of time we cannot ex- 
pect such mummies unto our memories, when 
ambition may fear the prophecy of Elias, and 
Charles the Fifth can never expect to live within 
two Methuselahs of Hector. 

And therefore restless inquietude for the 
diuturnity of our memories unto present con- 
siderations, seems a vanity almost out of date, 
and superannuated piece of folly. We cannot 
hope to live so long in our names as some have 



n6 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE 



done in their persons. One face of Janus holds 
no proportion unto the other. 'Tis too late 
to be ambitious. The great mutations of the 
world are acted, or time may be too short for 
our designs. To extend our memories by 
monuments, whose death we daily pray for, 
and whose duration we cannot hope, without 
injury to our expectations, in the advent of the 
last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. 
YVe, whose generations are ordained in this 
setting part of time, are providentially taken 
off from such imaginations; and being neces- 
sitated to eye the remaining particle of futurity, 
are naturally constituted unto thoughts of the 
next world, and cannot excusably decline the 
consideration of that duration, which maketh 
pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a 
moment. 

Circles and right lines limit and close all 
bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle must 
conclude and shut up all. There is no anti- 
dote against the opium of time, which tempo- 
rarily considereth all things. Our fathers find 
their graves in our short memories, and sadly 
tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. 
Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years. Gen- 
erations pass while some trees stand, and old 
families last not three oaks. To be read by 
bare inscriptions, like many in Gruter; ' to 
hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets, or 
first letters of our names; to be studied by anti- 
quaries, who we were, and have new names 
given us, like many of the mummies, are cold 
consolations unto the students of perpetuity, 
even by everlasting languages. 

To be content that times to come should 
only know there was such a man, not caring 
whether they knew more of him, was a frigid 
ambition in Cardan, disparaging his horo- 
scopal inclination and judgment of himself. 
Who cares to subsist like Hippocrates's pa- 
tients, or Achillcs's horses in Homer, under 
naked nominations, without deserts and noble 
acts, which are the balsam of our memories, 
the "entelechia" 2 and soul of our subsistences? 
Yet to be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds 
an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman 
lives more happily without a name, than Hero- 
dias with one. And who had not rather have 
been the good thief than Pilate? 

But the iniquity 3 of oblivion blindly scat- 
tereth her poppy, and deals with the memory 
of men without distinction to merit of per- 



1 Gruter's Ancient Inscriptions 
8 injustice 



2 realizations 



petuity. Who can but pity the founder of the 
pyramids? Erostratus lives that burnt the 
Temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built 
it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's 
horse, confounded that of himself. In vain 
we compute our felicities by the advantage of 
our good names, since bad have equal dura- 
tions; and Thersites is like to live as long as 
Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best 
of men be known, or whether there be not 
more remarkable persons forgot than any that 
stand remembered in the known account of 
time? Without the favour of the everlasting 
register, the first man had been as unknown 
as the last, and Methuselah's long life had 
been his only chronicle. 

Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater 
part must be content to be as though they had 
not been, to be found in the register of God, 
not in the record of man. Twenty-seven 
names make up the first story, and the recorded 
names ever since contain not one living cen- 
turv. The number of the dead long exceedeth 
all that shall live. The night of time far sur- 
passed the day; and who knows when was 
the equinox ? Every hour adds unto that cur- 
rent arithmetic, which scarce stands one mo- 
ment. And since death must be the Lucina 
of life, and even Pagans could doubt whether 
thus to live were to die; since our longest sun 
sets at right declensions, and makes but winter 
arches, and therefore it cannot be long before 
we lie down in darkness, and have our light in 
ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts 
us with dying mementos, and time, that grows 
old itself, bids us hope no long duration, diu- 
turnity is a dream and folly of expectation. 

Darkness and light divide the course of time, 
and oblivion shares with memory a great part 
even of our living beings. We slightly remember 
our felicities, and the smartest strokes of afflic- 
tion leave but short smart upon us. Sense 
endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy 
us or themselves. To weep into stones are 
fables. Afflictions induce callosities; miser- 
ies are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, 
which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupid- 
ity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and for- 
getful of evils past, is a merciful provision in 
nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our 
few and evil days, and our delivered senses not 
relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sor- 
rows are not kept raw by the edge of repe- 
titions. A great part of antiquity contented 
their hopes of subsistency with a transmigra- 
tion of their souls; a good way to continue 



THOMAS FULLER 



117 



their memories, while, having the advantage 
of plural successions, they could not but act 
something remarkable in such variety of beings, 
and enjoying the fame of their passed selves, 
make accumulation of glory unto their last 
durations. Others, rather than be lost in the 
uncomfortable night of nothing, were content 
to recede into the common being, and make 
one particle of the public soul of all things, 
which was no more than to return into their 
unknown and divine original again. Egyp- 
tian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriv- 
ing their bodies in sweet consistencies to attend 
the return of their souls. But all was vanity, 
feeding the wind and folly. The Egyptian 
mummies, which Cambyses or time hath 
spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is 
become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, 
and Pharaoh is sold for balsams. 

In vain do individuals hope for immortality, 
or any patent from oblivion, in preservations 
below the moon. Men have been deceived 
even in their flatteries above the sun, and 
studied conceits to perpetuate their names in 
heaven. The various cosmography of that 
part hath already varied the names of con- 
trived constellations. Nimrod is lost in Orion, 
and Osiris in the Dog-star. While we look for 
incorruption in the heavens, we find they are 
but like the earth, durable in their main bodies, 
alterable in their parts; whereof, beside com- 
ets and new stars, perspectives begin to tell 
tales, and the spots that wander about the sun, 
with Phaethon's favor, would make clear con- 
viction. 

There is nothing strictly immortal but im- 
mortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may 
be confident of no end; which is the peculiar 
of that necessary essence that cannot destroy 
itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency to 
be so powerfully constituted, as not to suffer 
even from the power of itself. All others have 
a dependent being, and within the reach of 
destruction. But the sufficiency of Christian 
immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and 
the quality of either state after death makes a 
folly of posthumous memory. God, who can 
only destroy our souls, and hath assured our 
resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath 
directly promised no duration. Wherein there 
is so much of chance, that the boldest expec- 
tants have found unhappy frustration ; and to 
hold long subsistence seems but a scape in 
oblivion. But man is a noble animal, splendid 
in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnising 
nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omit- 



ting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of 
his nature. . . . 



THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661) 

THE HOLY STATE 

BOOK II. CHAPTER XXII 

The Life of Sir Francis Drake 

Francis Drake was born nigh South Tavis- 
tock in Devonshire, and brought up in Kent; 
God dividing the honour betwixt two coun- 
ties, that the one might have his birth, and the 
other his education. His father, being a min- 
ister, fled into Kent, for fear of the Six Articles, 
wherein the sting of Popery still remained in 
England, though the teeth thereof were knocked 
out, and the Pope's supremacy abolished. 
Coming into Kent, he bound his son Francis 
apprentice to the master of a small bark, 
which traded into France and Zealand, where 
he underwent a hard service; and pains with 
patience in his youth, did knit the joints of 
his soul, and made them more solid and com- 
pacted. His master, dying unmarried, in re- 
• ward of his industry, bequeathed his bark 
unto him for a legacy. 

For some time he continued his master's 
profession; but the narrow seas were a prison 
for so large a spirit, born for greater under- 
takings. He soon grew weary of his bark; 
which would scarce go alone, but as it crept 
along by the shore: wherefore, selling it, he 
unfortunately ventured most of his estate with 
Captain John Hawkins into the West Indies, 
in 1567; whose goods were taken by the Span- 
iards at St. John de Ulva, and he himself 
scarce escaped with life: the king of Spain 
being so tender in those parts, that the least 
touch doth wound him; and so jealous of the 
West Indies, his wife, that willingly he would 
have none look upon her: he therefore used 
them with the greater severity. 

Drake was persuaded by the minister of his 
ship, that he might lawfully recover in value 
of the king of Spain, and repair his losses upon 
him anywhere else. The case was clear in 
sea-divinity; and few are such infidels, as not 
to believe doctrines which make for their own 
profit. Whereupon Drake, though a poor 
private man, hereafter undertook to revenge 
himself on so mighty a monarch; who, as not 
contented that the sun riseth and setteth in his 



n8 



THOI\[AS FULLER 



dominions, may seem to desire to make all 
his own where he shineth. And now let us 
see how a dwarf, standing on the mount of 
God's providence, may prove an overmatch 
for a giant. 

After two or three several voyages to gain 
intelligence in the West Indies, and some prizes 
taken, at last he effectually .set forward from 
Plymouth with two ships, the one of seventy, 
the other twenty-five, tons, and seventy-three 
men and boys in both. He made with all 
speed and secrecy to Nombre de Dios, as 
loath to put the town to too much charge (which 
he knew they would willingly bestow) in pro- 
viding beforehand for his entertainment; which 
city was then the granary of the West Indies, 
wherein the golden harvest brought from Pan- 
ama was hoarded up till it could be conveyed 
into Spain. They came hard aboard the shore, 
and lay quiet all night, intending to attempt 
the town in the dawning of the day. 

But he was forced to alter his resolution, and 
assault it sooner; for he heard his men mut- 
tering amongst themselves of the strength 
and greatness of the town: and when men's 
heads are once fly-blown with buzzes of sus- 
picion, the vermin multiply instantly, and one 
jealousy begets another. Wherefore, he raised 
them from their nest before they hail hatched 
their fears; and, to put away those conceits, 
he persuaded them it was day-dawning when 
the moon rose, and instantly set on the town, 
and won it, being unwalled. In the market- 
place the Spaniards saluted them with a volley 
of shot; Drake returned their greeting with a 
flight of arrows, the best and ancient English 
compliment, which drave their enemies away. 
Here Drake received a dangerous wound, 
though he valiantly concealed it a long time; 
knowing if his heart stooped, his men's would 
fall, and loath to leave off the action, wherein 
if so bright an opportunity once setteth, it 
seldom riseth again. But at length his men 
forced him to return to his ship, that his wound 
might be dressed; and this unhappy accident 
defeated the whole design. Thus victory 
sometimes slips through their lingers who 
have caught it in their hands. 

But his valour would not let him give over 
the project as long as there was either life or 
warmth in it; and therefore, having received 
intelligence from the Negroes called Symerons, 
of many mules'-lading of gold and silver, which 
was to be brought from Panama, he, leaving 
competent numbers to man his ships, went on 
land with the rest, and bestowed himself in the 



woods by the way as they were to pass, and so 
intercepted and carried away an infinite mass 
of gold. As for the silver, which was not 
portable over the mountains, they digged holes 
in the ground and hid it therein. 

There want not those who love to beat down 
the price of every honourable action, though 
they themselves never mean to be chapmen. 
These cry up Drake's fortune herein to cry 
down his valour; as if this his performance 
were nothing, wherein a golden opportunity 
ran his head, with his long forelock, into 
Drake's hands beyond expectation. But, cer- 
tainly, his resolution and unconquerable pa- 
tience deserved much praise, to adventure on 
such a design, which had in it just no more 
probability than what was enough to keep it 
from being impossible. Yet I admire not so 
much at all the treasure he took, as at the rich 
and deep mine of God's providence. 

Having now full freighted himself with wealth, 
and burnt at the House of Crosses above two 
hundred thousand pounds' worth of Spanish 
merchandise, he returned with honour and 
safety into England, and, some years after, 
(December 13th, 1577) undertook that his 
famous voyage about the world, most accurately 
described by our English authors: and yet a 
word or two thereof will not be amiss. 

Setting forward from Plymouth, he bore 
up for Cabo-verd, where, near to the island of 
St. Jago, he took prisoner Xuno de Silva, an 
experienced Spanish pilot, whose direction he 
used in the coasts of Brazil and Magellan 
Straits, and afterwards safely landed him at 
Guatulco in New Spain. Hence they took 
their course to the Island of Brava; and here- 
abouts they met with those tempestuous winds 
whose only praise is, that they continue not an 
hour, in which time they change all the points 
of the compass. Here they had great plenty 
of rain, poured (not, as in other places, as it 
were out of sieves, but) as out of spouts, so 
that a butt of water falls down in a place; 
which, notwithstanding, is but a courteous 
injury in that hot climate far from land, and 
where otherwise fresh water cannot be provided. 
Then cutting the Line, they saw the face of that 
heaven which earth hideth from us, but therein 
only three stars of the first greatness, the rest 
few and small compared to our hemisphere; 
as if God, on purpose, had set up the best and 
biggest candles in that room wherein his civilest 
guests are entertained. 

Sailing the south of Brazil, he afterwards 
passed the Magellan Straits, (August 20th, 157S) 



THE HOLY STATE 



119 



and then entered Mare Pacificum, came to 
the southernmost land at the height of 55^ 
latitudes; thence directing his course north- 
ward, he pillaged many Spanish towns, and 
took rich prizes of high value in the king- 
doms of Chili, Peru, and New Spain. Then, 
bending eastwards, he coasted China, and the 
Moluccas, where, by the king of Terrenate, a 
true gentleman Pagan, he was most honourably 
entertained. The king told them, they and 
he were all of one religion in this respect, — ' 
that they believed not in gods made of 
stocks and stones, as did the Portugals. He 
furnished them also with all necessaries that 
they wanted. 

On January 9th following, (1579,) his ship, 
having a large wind and a smooth sea, ran 
aground on a dangerous shoal, and struck 
twice on it; knocking twice at the door of 
death, which, no doubt, had opened the third 
time. Here they stuck, from eight o'clock at 
night till four the next afternoon, having ground 
too much, and yet too little to land on; and 
water too much, and yet too little to sail in. 
Had God (who, as the wise man saith, "holdcth 
the winds in his fist," Prov. xxx. 4) but opened 
his little finger, and let out the smallest blast, 
they had undoubtedly been cast away; but 
there blew not any wind all the while. Then 
they, conceiving aright that the best way to 
lighten the ship was, first, to ease it of the 
burden of their sins by true repentance, humbled 
themselves, by fasting, under the hand of God. 
Afterwards they received the communion, 
dining on Christ in the sacrament, expecting 
no other than to sup with him in heaven. Then 
they cast out of their ship six great pieces of 
ordnance, threw overboard as much wealth as 
would break the heart of a miser to think on 
it, with much sugar, and packs of spices, making 
a caudle of the sea round about. Then they 
betook themselves to their prayers, the best 
lever at such a dead lift indeed ; and it pleased 
God, that the wind, formerly their mortal 
enemy, became their friend; which, changing 
from the starboard to the larboard of the ship, 
and rising by degrees, cleared them off to the 
sea again, — for which they returned unfeigned 
thanks to Almighty God. 

By the Cape of Good Plope and west of 
Africa, he returned safe into England, and 
(November 3rd, 1580) landed at Plymouth, 
(being almost the first of those that made a 
thorough light through the world,) having, in his 
whole voyage, though a curious searcher after 
the time, lost one day through the variation of 



several climates. He feasted the queen in his 
ship at Dartford, who knighted him for his 
service. Yet it grieved him not a little, that 
some prime courtiers refused the gold he 
offered them, as gotten by piracy. Some of 
them would have been loath to have been told, 
that they had aurum Tholosanum ' in their 
own purses. Some think, that they did it to 
show that their envious pride was above their 
covetousness, who of set purpose did blur the 
fair copy -of his performance, because they 
would not take pains to write after it. 

I pass by his next West-Indian voyage, 
(1585,) wherein he took the cities of St. Jago, 
St. Domingo, Carthagena, and St. Augustine 
in Florida; as also his service performed in 
1588, wherein he, with many others, helped to 
the waning of that half-moon, 2 which sought 
to govern all the motion of our sea. I haste 
to his last voyage. 

Queen Elizabeth, in 1595, perceiving that 
the only way to make the Spaniard a cripple 
forever, was to cut his sinews of war in the West 
Indies, furnished Sir Francis Drake, and Sir 
John Hawkins, with six of her own ships, be- 
sides twenty-one ships and barks of their own 
providing, containing in all two thousand five 
hundred men and boys, for some service on 
America. But, alas! this voyage was marred 
before begun. For, so great preparations being 
too big for a cover, the king of Spain knew of 
it, and sent a caraval of adviso 3 to the West 
Indies ; so that they had intelligence three weeks 
before the fleet set forth of England, either to 
fortify or remove their treasure; whereas, in 
other of Drake's voyages, not two of his own 
men knew whither he went; and managing 
such a design is like carrying a mine in war, — 
if it hath any vent, all is spoiled. Besides, 
Drake and Hawkins, being in joint commission, 
hindered each other. The latter took himself 
to be inferior rather in success than skill; and 
the action was unlike to prosper when neither 
would follow, and both could not handsomely 
go abreast. It vexed old Hawkins, that his 
counsel was not followed, in present sailing to 
America, but that they spent time in vain in 
assaulting the Canaries; and the grief that his 
advice was slighted, say some, was the cause of 
his death. Others impute it to the sorrow he 
took for the taking of his bark called "the 
Francis," which five Spanish frigates had inter- 
cepted. But when the same heart hath two 



1 Spanish gold, as bribes 
notification 



Spain 



1 ship of 



120 



JOHN MILTON 



mortal wounds given it together, it is hard to 
say which of them killeth. 

Drake continued his course for Porto Rico; 
and, riding within the road, a shot from the 
Castle entered the steerage of the ship, took 
away the stool from under him as he sate at 
supper, wounded Sir Nicholas Clifford, and 
Brute Brown to death. "Ah, dear Brute!" 
said Drake, "I could grieve for thee, but now 
is no time for me to let down my spirits." 
And, indeed, a soldier's most proper bemoaning 
a friend's death in war, is in revenging it. 
And, sure, as if grief had made the English 
furious, they soon after fired live Spanish ships of 
two hundred tons apiece, in despite of the Castle. 

America is not unfitly resembled to an hour- 
glass, which hath a narrow neck of land, (sup- 
pose it the hole where the sand passeth,) betwixt 
the parts thereof, — Mexicana and Peruana. 
Now, the English had a design to march by 
land over this Isthmus, from Porto Rico to 
Panama, where the Spanish treasure was laid 
up. Sir Thomas Baskervile, general of the 
land-forces, undertook the service with seven 
hundred and fifty armed men. They marched 
through deep ways, the Spaniards much annoy- 
ing them with shot out of the woods. One fort 
in the passage they assaulted in vain, and heard 
two others were built to stop them, besides 
Panama itself. They had so much of this break- 
fast they thought they should surfeit of a dinner 
and supper of the same. No hope of conquest, 
except with cloving the jaws of death, and thrust- 
ing men on the mouth of the cannon. Where- 
fore, fearing to find the proverb true, that "gold 
may be bought too dear," they returned to 
their ships. Drake afterwards fired Nombre 
de Dios, and many other petty towns, (whose 
treasure the Spaniards had conveyed away,) 
burning the empty casks, when their precious 
liquor was run out before, and then prepared 
for their returning home. 

Great was the difference betwixt the Indian 
cities now, from what they were when Drake 
first haunted these coasts. At first, the Span- 
iards lure were safe and secure, counting their 
treasure sufficient to defend itself, the remote- 
ness thereof being the greatest (almost only) 
resistance, ami the fetching of it more than 
the fighting for it. Whilst the king of Spain 
guarded the head and heart of his dominions 
in Europe, he left his long legs in America open 
to blows; till, finding them to smart, being 
beaten black and blue by the English, lie 
learned to arm them at last, fortifying the most 
important of them to make them impregnable. 



Now began Sir Francis's discontent to feed 
upon him. He conceived, that expectation, 
a merciless usurer, computing each day since 
his departure, exacted an interest and return 
of honour and profit proportionable to his great 
preparations, and transcending his former 
achievements. He saw that all the good which 
he had done in this voyage, consisted in the evil 
he had done to the Spaniards afar off, whereof 
he could present but small visible fruits in 
England. These apprehensions, accompany- 
ing, if not causing, the disease of the flux, 
wrought his sudden death, January 28th, 1595. 
And sickness did not so much untie his clothes, 
as sorrow did rend at once the robe of his mor- 
tality asunder. He lived by the sea, died on 
it, and was buried in it. Thus an extempore 
performance (scarce heard to be begun, before 
we hear it is ended!) comes off with hotter 
applause, or miscarries with less disgrace, 
than a long studied and openly-premeditated 
action. Besides, we see how great spirits, 
having mounted to the highest pitch of per- 
formance, afterwards strain and break their 
credits in striving to go beyond it. Lastly, 
God oftentimes leaves the brightest men in an 
eclipse, to show that they do but borrow their 
lustre from his reflexion. We will not justify 
all the actions of any man, though of a tamer 
profession than a sea-captain, in whom civility 
is often counted preciseness. For the main, 
we say that this our captain was a religious man 
towards God and his houses, (generally sparing 
churches where he came) chaste in his life, 
just in his dealings, true of his word, and mer- 
ciful to those that were under him, hating noth- 
ing so much as idleness: and therefore, lest 
his soul should rust in peace, at spare hours 
he brought fresh water to Plymouth. Careful 
he was for posterity, (though men of his pro- 
fession have as well an ebb of riot, as a float 
of fortune) and providently raised a worshipful 
family of his kindred. In a word: should those 
that speak against him fast till they fetch their 
bread where he did his, they would have a good 
stomach to eat it. 



JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) 

OF EDUCATION 

TO MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB 

Master Hartlib, — I am long since persuaded, 
that to say or do aught worth memory and 



OF EDUCATION 



121 



imitation, no purpose or respect should sooner 
move us than simply the love of God, and of 
mankind. Nevertheless, to write now the re- 
forming of education, though it be one of the 
greatest and noblest designs that can be thought 
on, and for the want whereof this nation perishes; 
1 had not yet at this time been induced, but by 
your earnest entreaties and serious conjure- 
ments; as having my mind for the present 
half-diverted in the pursuance of some other 
assertions, the knowledge and the use of which 
cannot but be a great furtherance both to the 
enlargement of truth, and honest living with 
much more peace. Nor should the laws of 
any private friendship have prevailed with me 
to divide thus, or transpose my former thoughts, 
but that I see those aims, those actions, which 
have won you with me the esteem of a person 
sent hither by some good providence from a 
far country to be the occasion and incitement 
of great good to this island. And, as I hear, 
you have obtained the same repute with men 
of most approved wisdom, and some of the 
highest authority among us; not to mention 
the learned correspondence which you hold in 
foreign parts, and the extraordinary pains and 
diligence, which you have used in this matter 
both here and beyond the seas; cither by the 
definite will of God so ruling, or the peculiar 
sway of nature, which also is God's working. 
Neither can I think that so reputed and so val- 
ued as you are, you would to the forfeit of your 
own discerning ability, impose upon me an un- 
fit and overponderous argument; but that the 
satisfaction, which you profess to have received 
from those incidental discourses which we have 
wandered into, hath pressed and almost con- 
strained you into a persuasion, that what you 
require from me in this point, I neither ought 
nor can in conscience defer beyond this time 
both of so much need at once, and so much 
opportunity to try what God hath determined. 
I will not resist therefore whatever it is, cither 
of divine or human obligement, that you lay 
upon me; but will forthwith set down in writing, 
as you request me, that voluntary idea, which 
hath long in silence presented itself to me, of a 
better education, in extent and comprehension 
far more large, and yet of time far snorter, and 
of attainment far more certain, than hath been 
yet in practice. Brief I shall endeavour to be; 
for that which I have to say, assuredly this 
nation hath extreme need should be done sooner 
than spoken. To tell you therefore what I 
have benefited herein among old renowned 
authors, I shall spare ; and to search what many 



modern Januas ' and Didactics, 1 more than 
ever 1 shall read, have projected, my inclination 
leads me not. But if you can accept of these 
few observations which have flowered off, and 
are as it were the burnishing of many studious 
and contemplative years altogether spent in the 
search of religious and civil knowledge, and 
such as pleased you so well in the relating, I 
here give you them to dispose of. 

The end then of learning is to repair the ruins 
of our first parents by regaining to know God 
aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, 
to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the 
nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, 
which being united to the heavenly grace of 
faith, makes up the highest perfection. But 
because our understanding cannot in this body 
found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive 
so clearly to the knowledge of God and things 
invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible 
and inferior creature, the same method is 
necessarily to be followed in all discreet teach- 
ing. And seeing every nation affords not ex- 
perience and tradition enough for all kind of 
learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the 
languages of those people who have at any time 
been most industrious after wisdom; so that 
language is but the instrument conveying to us 
things useful to be known. And though a 
linguist should pride himself to have all the 
tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet 
if he have not studied the solid things in 
them as well as the words and lexicons, he 
were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned 
man, as any yeoman or tradesman compe- 
tently wise in his mother dialect only. Hence 
appear the many mistakes which have made 
learning generally so unpleasing and so un- 
successful; first, we do amiss to spend seven 
or eight years merely in scraping together so 
much miserable Latin and Greek, as might be 
learned otherwise easily and delightfully in 
one year. 

And that which casts our proficiency therein 
so much behind, is our time lost partly in too 
oft idle vacancies given both to schools and 
universities; partly in a preposterous exaction, 
forcing the empty wits of children to compose 
themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts 
of ripest judgment, and the final work of a 
head tilled by long reading and observing, with 
elegant maxims and copious invention. These 
are not matters to be wrung from poor striplings, 
like blood out of the nose, or the plucking 

1 treatises on education 



122 



JOHN MILTON 



of untimely fruit; besides the ill habit which 
they get of wretched barbarising against the 
Latin and Greek idiom, with their untutored 
Anglicisms, odious to be read, yet not to be 

avoided without a well-continued and judicious 
conversing among pure authors digested, which 
they scarce taste: whereas, if after some pre- 
paratory grounds of speech by their certain 
forms got into memory, they were led to the 
praxis thereof in some chosen short book 
lessoned thoroughly to them, they might then 
forthwith proceed to learn the substance of 
good things, and arts in due order, which would 
bring the whole language quickly into their 
power. This I take to be the most rational 
and most profitable way of learning languages, 
and whereby we may best hope to give account 
to God of our youth spent herein. 

And for the usual method of teaching arts, 
I deem it to be an old error of universities, not 
yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness 
of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning 
with arts most easy, (and those be such as are 
most obvious to the sense,) they present their 
young unmatriculated novices at first coming 
with the most intellective abstractions of logic 
and metaphysics; so that they having but newly 
left those grammatic Bats ami shallows where 
they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words 
with lamentable construction, and now on the 
sudden transported under another climate to 
be tossed and turmoiled with their unballasted 
wits in fathomless and unquiet deeps of con- 
troversy, do for the most part grow into hatred 
and contempt of learning, mocked ami deluded 
all this while with ragged notions and babble- 
ments, while they expected worthy and delight- 
ful knowledge; till poverty or youthful years 
call them importunately their several ways, and 
hasten them with the sway of friends either to 
an ambitious and mercenary, or ignorantlv 
zealous divinity; some allured to the trade of 
law, grounding their purposes not on the pru- 
dent and heavenly contemplation of justice and 
equity, which was never taught them, but on 
the promising and pleasing thoughts of litigious 
terms, fat contentions, and (lowing fees; others 
betake them to state affairs, with souls so un- 
principled in virtue and true generous breed- 
ing, that flattery and court-shifts and tyrannous 
aphorisms appear to them the highest points 
01 wisdom ; instilling their barren hearts with a 
conscientious slavery; if, as 1 rather think, it be 
not feigned. Others, lastly, of a more delicious 
and airy spirit, retire themselves (knowing no 
better) to the enjoyments of ease and luxury, 



living out their days in feast and jollity; which 
indeed is the wisest and the safest course of 
all these, unless they were with more integrity 
undertaken. And these are the errors, and 
these are the fruits of misspending our prime 
youth at the schools and universities as we do, 
either in learning mere words, or such things 
chiefly as were better unlearned. 

I shall detain you now no longer in the 
demonstration of what we should not do, but 
straight conduct you to a hill-side, where I 
will point you out the right path of a virtuous 
and noble education; laborious indeed at the 
first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so 
full of goodly prospect, ami melodious sounds 
on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not 
more charming. I doubt not but ye shall have 
more ado to drive our dullest and laziest youth, 
our stocks and stubs, from the infinite desire 
of such a happy nurture, than we have now to 
hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest 
wits to that asinine feast of sow-thistles ami 
brambles, which is commonly set before them 
as all the food and entertainment of their 
tenderest and most docible age. I call therefore 
a complete and generous education, that which 
fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and mag- 
nanimously all the offices, both private and 
public, of peace and war. Ami how all this 
may be done between twelve and one-and- 
twenty, less time than is now bestowed in pure 
trifling at grammar and sophistry, is to be thus 
ordered. 

First, to find out a spacious house and ground 
about it tit for an academy, and big enough 
to lodge a hundred and fifty persons, whereof 
twenty or thereabout may be attendants, all 
under the government of one, who shall be 
thought of desert sufficient, ami ability either 
to do all, or wisely to direct and oversee it done. 
This place should be at once both school and 
university, not needing a remove to any other 
house of scholarship, except it be some peculiar 
college of law, or physic, where they mean to 
be practitioners; but as for those general stud- 
ies which take up all our time from Lilly ' 
to commencing, as they term it, master of art, 
it should be absolute. After this pattern, as 
many edifices may be converted to this use as 
shall be needful in every city throughout this 
land, which would tend much to the increase 
of learning and civility everywhere. This 
number, less or more, thus collected, to the 
convenience of a foot company, or interchange- 

1 Lilly's Elementary Latin Grammar 



OF EDUCATION 



123 



ably two troops of cavalry, should divide 
their day's work into three parts as it lies 
orderly; their studies, their exercise, and their 
diet. 

For their studies; first, they should begin 
with the chief and necessary rules of some good 
grammar, either that now used, or any better; 
and while this is doing, their speech is to be 
fashioned to a distinct and clear pronunciation, 
as near as may be to the Italian, especially 
in the vowels. For we Englishmen being far 
northerly, do not open our mouths in the cold 
air wide enough to grace a southern tongue; 
but are observed by all other nations to speak 
exceeding close and inward; so that to smarter 
Latin with an English mouth, is as ill a hearing 
as law French. Next, to make them expert in 
the use fullest points of grammar; and withal to 
season them and win them early to the love of 
virtue and true labour, ere any flattering se- 
ducement or vain principle seize them wander- 
ing, some easy and delightful book of education 
would be read to them; whereof the Greeks 
have store, as Cebes, Plutarch, and other Socratic 
discourses. But in Latin we have none of 
classic authority extant, except the two or 
three first books of Quintilian, and some 
select pieces elsewhere. But here the main 
skill and groundwork will be, to temper them 
such lectures and explanations upon every 
opportunity, as may lead and draw them in 
willing obedience, enflamcd with the study of 
learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred 
up with high hopes of living to be brave men, 
and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous 
to all ages. That they may despise and scorn 
all their childish and ill-taught qualities, to de- 
light in manly and liberal exercises; which he 
who hath the art and proper eloquence to catch 
them with, what with mild and effectual per- 
suasions, and that with the intimation of some 
fear, if need be, but chiefly by his own example, 
might in a short space gain them to an incredible 
diligence and courage ; infusing into their young 
breasts such an ingenuous and noble ardour, 
as would not fail to make many of them re- 
nowned and matchless men. At the same time, 
some other hour of the day, might be taught them 
the rules of arithmetic, and soon after the ele- 
ments of geometry, even playing, as the old man- 
ner was. After evening repast, till bedtime, their 
thoughts would be best taken up in the easy 
grounds of religion, and the story of Scripture. 
The next step would be to the authors of agricul- 
ture, Cato, Varo, and Columella, for the matter 
is most easy; and if the language be difficult, so 



much the better, it is not a difficulty above their 
years. And here will be an occasion of inciting, 
and enabling them hereafter to improve the 
tillage of their country, to recover the bad soil, 
and to remedy the waste that is made of good; 
for this was one of Hercules's praises. Ere 
half these authors be read (which will soon be 
with plying hard and daily) they cannot choose 
but be masters of any ordinary prose. So 
that it will he then seasonable for them to learn 
in any modern author the use of the globes, 
and all the maps; first with the old names, 
and then with the new; or they might be then 
capable to read any compendious method of 
natural philosophy. And at the same time 
might be entering into the Greek tongue, 
after the same manner as was before prescribed 
in the Latin ; whereby the difficulties of gram- 
mar being soon overcome, all the historical 
physiology of Aristotle and Theophrastus are 
open before them, and, as I may say, under 
contribution. The like access will be to Vi- 
truvius, to Seneca's natural questions, to Mela, 
Celsus, Pliny, or Solinus. And having thus 
passed the principles of arithmetic, geometry, 
astronomy, and geography, with a general 
compact of physics, they may descend in math- 
ematics to the instrumental science of trigo- 
nometry, and from thence to fortification, 
architecture, enginery, or navigation. And in 
natural philosophy they may proceed leisurely 
from the history of meteors, minerals, plants, 
and living creatures, as far as anatomy. Then 
also in course might be read to them out of 
some not tedious writer the institution of physic; 
that they may know the tempers, the humours, 
the seasons, and how to manage a crudity; which 
he who can wisely and timely do, is not only 
a great physician to himself and to his friends, 
but also may at some time or other save an 
army by this frugal and expenseless means only; 
and not let the healthy and stout bodies of young 
men rot away under him for want of this dis- 
cipline; which is a great pity, and no less a 
shame to the commander. To set forward all 
these proceedings in nature and mathematics, 
what hinders but that they may procure, as oft 
as shall be needful, the helpful experiences of 
hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds, garden- 
ers, apothecaries; and in the other sciences, 
architects, engineers, mariners, anatomists; who 
doubtless would be ready, some for reward, and 
some to favour such a hopeful seminary. And 
this will give them such a real tincture of natural 
knowledge, as they shall never forget, but daily 
augment with delight. Then also those poets 



124 



JOHN MILTON 



which are now counted most hard, will be both 
facile and pleasant, Orpheus, Hesiod, Theocri- 
tus, Aratus, Nicander, Oppian, Dionysius, and 

in Latin, Lucretius, Manilius, and the rural 
part of Virgil. 

By this time, years, and good general pre- 
cepts, will have furnished them more distinctly 
with that act of reason which in ethics is called 
Proairesis; 1 that they may with some judg- 
ment contemplate upon moral good and evil. 
Then will be required a special reinforcement 
of constant and sound indoctrinating to set 
them right and firm, instructing them more am- 
ply in the knowledge of virtue and the haired 
of vice; while their young and pliant affections 
are led through all the moral works of Plato, 
Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, Laertius, and 
those Locrian remnants; but still to be re- 
duced "' in their nightward studies wherewith 
they close the day's work, under the deter 
ruinate sentence of David or Solomon, or the 
evangels and apostolic Scriptures. Being per- 
fect in the knowledge of personal duty, they may 
then begin the study of economics. And either 
now or before this, they may have easily 
learned at any odd hour the Italian tongue. 
And soon after, but with wanness and good 
antidote, it would be wholesome enough to 
let them taste some choice comedies, Greek, 
Latin or Italian ; those tragedies also, that treat 
of household matters, as Trachiniae, Alcestis, 
and the like. The next removal must be to the 
study of politics; to know the beginning, end, 
and reasons of political societies; that they 
may not in a dangerous fit of the common- 
wealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, 
of such a tottering conscience, as many of our 
great counsellors have lately shown themselves, 
but stedfast pillars of the state. After this, 
they are to dive into the grounds of law, and 
legal justice; delivered first and with best 
warrant by Moses; and as far as human pru- 
dence can be trusted, in those extolled remains 
of Grecian law givers, LycurgUS, Solon, Zaleu- 
cus, Charondas, and thence to all the Roman 
edicts and tables with their Justinian; and so 
down to the Saxon and common laws of Eng- 
land, and the statutes. Sundays also and 
every evening may be now understandingly 
spent in the highest matters of theology, and 
church-history ancient and modern; and ere 
this time the Hebrew tongue at a set hour might 
have been gained, that the Scriptures may be 
now read in their own original; whereto it 

1 deliberate choice 2 brought back 



would be no impossibility to add the Chaldee, 
and the Syrian dialect. When all these employ- 
ments are well conquered, then will the choice 
histories, heroic poems, and Attic tragedies 
of stateliest and most regal argument, with all 
the famous political orations, offer themselves; 
which if they were not only read, but some of 
them got by memory, and solemnly pronounced 
with right accent and grace, as might be taught, 
would endue them even with the spirit and 
vigour of Demosthenes or Cicero, Euripides 
or Sophocles. 

And now lastly will be the time to read them 
with those organic arts, which enable men to 
discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, 
and according to the titled style of lofty, mean, 
or lowly. Logic, therefore, so much as is 
useful, is to be referred to this due place with 
all her well-couched heads and topics, until it 
be time to open her contracted palm into a 
graceful and ornate rhetoric taught out of 
the rule of Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, 
Hermogenes, Longinus. To which poetry 
would he made subsequent, or indeed rather 
precedent, as being less subtile and tine, but 
more simple, sensuous, and passionate. I 
mean not here the prosody of a verse, which 
they could not but have hit on before among 
the rudiments of grammar; but that sublime 
art which in Aristotle's poetics, in Horace, and 
the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro, 
Tasso, Mazzoni, and others, teaches what 
the laws are of a true epic poem,- what of a 
dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, 
which is the grand masterpiece to observe. 
This would make them soon perceive what 
despicable creatures o'ur common rhymers 
and play-writers be; and show them what 
religious, what glorious and magnificent use 
might be made of poetry, both in divine and 
human things. Prom hence, and not till now, 
will be the right season of forming them to be 
able writers and composers in every excellent 
matter, when they shall be thus fraught with an 
universal insight into things. Or whether they 
be to speak in parliament or council, honour 
and attention would he waiting on their lips. 
There would then also appear in pulpits other 
visages, other gestures, and stuff otherwise 
wrought than what we now sit under, ofttimes 
to as great a trial of our patience as any other 
that they preach to us. These are the studies 
wherein our noble and our gentle youth ought 
to bestow their time in a disciplinary way from 
twelve to one-and-twenty ; unless they rely 
more upon their ancestors dead than upon them- 



OF EDUCATION 



"5 



selves living. In which methodical course it 
is so supposed they must proceed by the steady 
pace of learning onward, as at convenient limes, 
for memory's sake, to retire back into the middle 
ward, and sometimes into the rear of what they 
have been taught, 1 until they have confirmed 
and solidly united the whole body of their 
perfected knowledge, like the last embattling 
of a Roman legion. Now will be worth the 
seeing, what exercises and recreations may best 
agree, and become these studies. 

Their Exercise 

The course of study hitherto briefly described 
is, what I can guess by reading, likest to those 
ancient and famous schools of Pythagoras, 
Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and such others, 
out of which were bred such a number of re- 
nowned philosophers, orators, historians, poets, 
and princes all over Greece, Italy, and Asia, 
besides the flourishing studies of Cyrcne and 
Alexandria. But herein it shall exceed them, 
and supply a defect as great as that which 
Plato noted in the commonwealth of Sparta; 
whereas that city trained up their youth most 
for war, and these in their academies and 
Lycasum all for the gown, this institution of 
breeding which I here delineate shall be equally 
good both for peace and war. 

Therefore about an hour and a half ere they 
eat at noon should be allowed them for exercise, 
and due rest afterwards; but the time for this 
may be enlarged at pleasure, according as their 
rising in the morning shall be early. The 
exercise which I commend first, is the exact use 
of their weapon, to guard, and to strike safely 
with edge or point ; this will keep them healthy, 
nimble, strong, and well in breath, is also the 
likeliest means to make them grow large and 
tall, and to inspire them with a gallant and 
fearless courage, which being tempered with 
seasonable lectures and precepts to them of 
true fortitude and patience, will turn into a 
native and heroic valour, and make them hate 
the cowardice of doing wrong. They must 
be also practised in all the locks and grips 
of wrestling, wherein Englishmen were wont 
to excel, as need may often be in fight to tug, 
to grapple, and to close. And this perhaps will 
be enough, wherein to prove and heat their 
single strength. 

The interim of unsweating themselves regu- 
larly, and convenient rest before meat, may 

1 i.e. to review 



both with profit and delight be taken up in 
recreating and composing their travailed spirits 
with the solemn and divine harmonies of music 
heard or learned; either whilst the skilful 
organist plies his grave and fancied descant in 
lofty fugues, or the whole symphony with artful 
and unimaginable touches adorn and grace the 
well -studied chords of some choice composer; 
sometimes the lute or soft organ stop waiting 
on elegant voices, cither to religious, martial, 
or civil ditties; which, if wise men and proph- 
ets be not extremely out, have a great power 
over dispositions and manners, to smooth and 
make them gentle from rustic harshness and 
distempered passions. The like also would 
not be unexpedient after meat, to assist and 
cherish nature in her first concoction, and send 
their minds back to study in good tune and 
satisfaction. 

Where having followed it close under vigilant 
eyes, till about two hours before supper, they 
are by a sudden alarum or watchword, to be 
called out to their military motions, under sky 
or covert, according to the season, as was the 
Roman wont; first on foot, then as their age 
permits, on horseback, to all the art of cavalry; 
that having in sport, but with much exactness 
and daily muster, served out the rudiments of 
their soldiership, in all the skill of embattling, 
marching, encamping, fortifying, besieging, and 
battering with all the helps of ancient and 
modern stratagems, tactics, and warlike max- 
ims, they may as it were out of a long war come 
forth renowned and perfect commanders in the 
service of their country. They would not then, 
if they were trusted with fair and hopeful armies, 
suffer them for want of just and wise discipline 
to shed away from about them like sick feathers, 
though they be never so oft supplied; they 
would not suffer their empty and unrequitable 
colonels of twenty men in a company, to quaff 
out, or convey into secret hoards, the wages of 
a delusive list, and a miserable remnant; yet 
in the meanwhile to be overmastered with a 
score or two of drunkards, the only soldiery 
left about them, or else to comply with all 
rapines and violences. No, certainly, if they 
knew aught of that knowledge that belongs to 
good men or good governors, they would not 
suffer these things. 

But to return to our own institute; besides 
these constant exercises at home, there is another 
opportunity of gaining experience to be won 
from pleasure itself abroad; in those vernal 
seasons of the year when the air is calm and 
pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness 



126 



JOHN MILTON 



against nature, not to go out and see her riches, 
and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and 
earth. I should not therefore be a persuader 
to them of studying much then, after two or 
three years that they have well laid their 
grounds, but to ride out in companies with 
prudent and staid guides to all the quarters 
of the land; learning and observing all places 
of strength, all commodities of building and of 
soil, for towns and tillage, harbours and ports 
for trade. Sometimes taking sea as far as to 
our navy, to learn there also what they can in 
the practical knowledge of sailing and of sea- 
fight. These ways would try all their peculiar 
gifts of nature, and if there were any secret 
excellence among them, would fetch it out, and 
give it fair opportunities to advance itself by, 
which could not but mightily redound to the 
good of this nation, and bring into fashion again 
those old admired virtues and excellencies 
with far more advantage now in this purity of 
Christian knowledge. Nor shall we then need 
the monsieurs of Paris to take our hopeful 
youth into their slight and prodigal custodies, 
and send them over back again transformed into 
mimics, apes, and kickshaws. 1 But if they 
^lesire to see other countries at three or four 
and twenty years of age, not to learn principles, 
but to enlarge experience, and make wise ob- 
servation, they will by that time be such as 
shall deserve the regard and honour of all men 
where they pass, and the society and friendship 
of those in all places who are best and most 
eminent. And perhaps, then other nations 
will be glad to visit us for their breeding, or 
else to imitate us in their own country. 

Now lastly for their diet there cannot be much 
to say, save only that it would be best in the 
same house; for much time else would be lost 
abroad, and many ill habits got; and that 
it should be plain, healthful, and moderate, I 
suppose is out of controversy. Thus, Mr. 
Hartlib, you have a general view in writing, as 
your desire was, of that, which at several times 
I had discoursed with you concerning the best 
and noblest way of education ; not beginning 
as some have done from the cradle, which yet 
might be worth many considerations, if brevity 
had not been my scope; many other circum- 
stances also I could have mentioned, but this, 
to such as have the worth in them to make 
trial, for light and direction may be enough. 
Only I believe that this is not a bow for every 
man to shoot in, that counts himself a teacher; 

1 triflcrs 



but will require sinews almost equal to those 
which Homer gave Ulysses; yet I am withal 
persuaded that it may prove much more easy 
in the assay, than it now seems at distance, 
and much more illustrious; howbeit, not more 
difficult than I imagine, and that imagination 
presents me with, nothing but very happy, and 
very possible according to best wishes; if God 
have so decreed, and this age have spirit and 
capacity enough to apprehend. 

From AREOPAGITICA 

A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UN- 
LICENSED PRINTING 

TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND 



■i- 



* 



I deny not but that it is of greatest concern- 
ment in the church and commonwealth, to have 
a vigilant eye how books demean themselves 
as well as men; and thereafter to confine, 
imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as 
malefactors: for books are not absolutely 
dead things, but do contain a potency of life 
in them to be as active as that soul was whose 
progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in 
a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of 
that living intellect that bred them. I know 
they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, 
as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being 
sown up and down, may chance to spring up 
armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless 
wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as 
kill a good book; who kills a man kills a rea- 
sonable creature, God's image; but he who 
destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills . 
the image of God as it were in the eye. Many 
a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good 
book is the precious life-blood of a master 
spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose 
to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can 
restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great 
loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover 
the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of 
which whole nations fare the worse. We should 
be wary therefore what persecution we raise 
against the living labours of public men, how 
we spill that seasoned life of man preserved 
and stored up in books; since we see a kind of 
homicide may be thus committed, sometimes 
a martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole 
impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the 
execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental 
life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, 
the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality 



AREOPAGITICA 



127 



rather than a life. But lest I should be con- 
demned of introducing license, while I oppose 
licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so much 
historical as will serve to show what hath been 
done by ancient and famous commonwealths 
against this disorder, till the very time that this 
project of licensing crept out of the inquisition, 
was catched up by our prelates, and hath 
caught some of our presbyters. 

In Athens where books and wits were ever 
busier than in any other part of Greece, I find 
but only two sorts of writings which the magis- 
trate cared to take notice of: those either blas- 
phemous and atheistical, or libellous. Thus 
the books of Protagoras were by the judges of 
Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and him- 
self banished the territory, for a discourse be- 
gun with his confessing not to know whether 
there were gods, or whether not: and against 
defaming, it was decreed that none should be 
traduced by name, as was the manner of Vetus 
Comcedia, 1 whereby we may guess how they 
censured libelling: and this course was quick 
enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the 
desperate wits of other atheists, and the open 
way of defaming, as the event showed. Of 
other sects and opinions though tending to 
voluptuousness and the denying of divine 
. providence they took no heed. Therefore we 
do not read that either Epicurus, or that liber- 
tine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic im- 
pudence uttered, was ever questioned by the 
laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings 
of those old comedians were suppressed, 
though the acting of them were forbid ; and that 
Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes, 
the loosest of them all, to his royal scholar 
Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be 
excused, if holy Chrysostom, as is reported, 
nightly studied so much the same author and 
had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence 
into the style of a rousing sermon. That other 
leading city of Greece, Lacedaemon, consider- 
ing that Lycurgus their law-giver was so ad- 
dicted to elegant learning as to have been the 
first that brought out of Ionia the scattered 
works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from 
Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surli- 
ness with his smooth songs and odes, the better 
to plant among them law and civility, it is 
to be wondered how museless and unbookish 
they were, minding nought but the feats of 
war. There needed no licensing of books 
among them, for they disliked all but their 

1 The Old Comedy 



own laconic apophthegms, and took a slight 
occasion to chase Archilochus out of their city, 
perhaps for composing in a higher strain than 
their own soldierly ballads and roundels could 
reach to; or if it were for his broad verses, they 
were not therein so cautious but they were 
as dissolute in their promiscuous conversing; 
whence Euripides affirms in Andromache, that 
their women were all unchaste. Thus much 
may give us light after what sort books were 
prohibited among the Greeks. 

The Romans also, for many ages trained up 
only to a military roughness, resembling most 
of the Lacedaemonian guise, knew of learning 
little but what their twelve tables, and the pon- 
tine college with their augurs and fiamens taught 
them in religion and law, so unacquainted with 
other learning that when Carneades and 
Critolaus, with the stoic Diogenes, coming 
embassadors to Rome, took thereby occasion 
to give the city a taste of their philosophy, 
they were suspected for seducers by no less 
a man than Cato the censor, who moved it in 
the senate to dismiss them speedily, and to 
banish all such Attic babblers out of Italy. 
But Scipio and others of the noblest senators 
withstood him and his old Sabine austerity; 
honoured and admired the men; and the 
censor himself at last in his old age fell to the 
study of that whereof before he was so scru- 
pulous. And yet at the same time Naevius 
and Plautus, the first Latin comedians, had 
filled the city with all the borrowed scenes of 
Menander and Philemon. Then began to be 
considered there also what was to be done to 
libellous books and authors; for Naevius was 
quickly cast into prison for his unbridled pen, 
and released by the tribunes upon his recan- 
tation ; we read also that libels were burnt, 
and the makers punished by Augustus. The 
like severity no doubt was used if aught were 
impiously written against their esteemed gods. 
Except in these two points, how the world went 
in books, the magistrate kept no reckoning. 
And therefore Lucretius without impeachment 
versifies his Epicurism to Memmius, and had 
the honour to be set forth the second time by 
Cicero so great a father of the commonwealth ; 
although himself disputes against that opinion in 
his own writings. Nor was the satirical sharp- 
ness, or naked plainness of Lucilius, or Catul- 
lus, or Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And 
for matters of state, the story of Titus Livius, 
though it extolled that part which Pompey held, 
was not therefore suppressed by Octavius 
Caesar of the other faction. But that Naso 



128 



JOHN MILTON 



was by him banished in his old age for the 
wanton poems of his youth, was but a mere 
covert of state over some secret cause; and 
besides, the books were neither banished nor 
called in. From hence we shall meet with little 
else but tyranny in the Roman empire, that we 
may not marvel if not so often bad as good 
books were silenced. I shall therefore deem 
to have been large enough in producing what 
among the ancients was punishable to write, 
save only which, all other arguments were free 
to treat on. 

By this time the emperors were become Chris- 
tians, whose discipline in this point I do not 
find to have been more severe than what was 
formerly in practice. The books of those 
whom they took to be grand heretics were 
examined, refuted, and condemned in the 
general councils; and not till then were pro- 
hibited, or burnt by authority of the emperor. 
As for the writings of heathen authors, unless 
they were plain invectives against Christianity, 
as those of Porphyrins and Proclus, they met 
with no interdict that can be cited till about the 
year 400 in a Carthaginian council, wherein 
bishops themselves were forbid to read the books 
of Gentiles, but heresies they might read : while 
others long before them on the contrary scrupled 
more the books of heretics than of Gentiles. 
And that the primitive councils and bishops 
were wont only to declare what books were not 
commendable, passing no further, but leaving 
it to each one's conscience to read or to lay by, 
till after the year 800, is observed already by 
Padre Paolo the great unmasker of the Trentine 
council. After which time the popes of Rome, 
engrossing what they pleased of political rule 
into their own hands, extended their dominion 
over men's eyes, as they had before over their 
judgments, burning and prohibiting to be read 
what they fancied not; yet sparing in their 
censures, and the books not many which they 
so dealt with; till Martin the V by his bull not 
only prohibited, but was the first that ex- 
communicated the reading of heretical books; 
for about that time Wickliffe and Husse grow- 
ing terrible were they who first drove the papal 
court to a stricter policy of prohibiting. Which 
course Leo the X and his successors followed, 
until the council of Trent and the Spanish 
inquisition engendering together brought forth 
or perfected those catalogues and expurging 
indexes that rake through the entrails of many 
an old good author witli a violation worse than 
any could be offered to his tomb. Nor did they 
stay in matters heretical, but any subject that 



was not to their palate they either condemned 
in a prohibition, or had it straight into the new 
purgatory of an index. To fill up the measure 
of encroachment, their last invention was to 
ordain that no book, pamphlet, or paper should 
be printed (as if St. Peter had bequeathed therh 
the keys of the press also out of Paradise) 
unless it were approved and licensed under the 

hands of two or three glutton friars 

Good and evil we know in the field of this 
world grow up together almost inseparably; 
and the knowledge of good is so involved and 
interwoven with the knowledge of evil and in 
so many cunning resemblances hardly to be 
discerned, that those confused seeds, which 
were imposed on Psyche as an incessant labour 
to cull out and sort asunder, were not more 
intermixed. It was from out the rind of one 
apple tasted that the knowledge of good and 
evil as two twins cleaving together leaped forth 
into the world. And perhaps this is that doom 
which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, 
that is to say of knowing good by evil. As 
therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom 
can there be to choose, what continence to 
forbear, without the knowledge of evil? He 
that can apprehend and consider vice with 
all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet 
abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer 
that which is truly better, he is the true war- 
faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive 
and cloistered virtue, unexercised and un- 
breathed, that never sallies out and sees her 
adversary, but slinks out of the race, where 
that immortal garland is to be run for not with- 
out dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not 
innocence into the world, we bring impurity 
much rather: that which purifies us is trial, 
and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue 
therefore which is but a youngling in the con- 
templation of evil, and knows not the utmost 
that vice promises to her followers, and rejects 
it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her white- 
ness is but an excremental whiteness; which 
was the reason why our sage and serious poet 
Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a 
better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas, de- 
scribing true temperance under the person of 
Guion, brings him in with his palmer through 
the cave of Mammon and the bower of earthly 
bliss, that he might see and know, and yet 
abstain. Since therefore the knowledge and 
survey of vice is in this world so necessary 
to the constituting of human virtue, and the 
scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, 
how can we more safely and with less danger 



AREOPAGITICA 



129 



scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by 
reading all manner of tractates, and hearing 
all manner of reason? And this is the benefit 
which may be had of books promiscuously 
read. 

But of the harm that may result hence three 
kinds arc usually reckoned: first, is feared the 
infection that may spread ; but then all human 
learning and controversy in religious points 
must remove out of the world, yea, the Bible 
itself; for that ofttimes relates blasphemy not 
nicely, it describes the carnal sense of wicked 
men not unelegantly, it brings in holiest men 
passionately murmuring against providence 
through all the arguments of Epicurus: in 
other great disputes it answers dubiously and 
darkly to the common reader: and ask a 
Talmudist what ails the modesty of his mar- 
ginal Keri, 1 that Moses and all the prophets 
cannot persuade him to pronounce the textual 
Chetiv. For these causes we all know the Bible 
itself put by the papist into the first rank of 
prohibited books. The ancientest fathers must 
be next removed, as Clement of Alexandria, 
and that Eusebian book of evangelic prepara- 
tion, transmitting our ears through a hoard of 
heathenish obscenities to receive the Gospel. 
Who finds not that Irenaeus, Epiphanius, 
Jerome, and others discover more heresies 
than they well confute, and that oft for heresy 
which is the truer opinion? Nor boots it to 
say for these, and all the heathen writers of 
greatest infection, if it must be thought so, 
with whom is bound up the life of human 
learning, that they writ in an unknown tongue, 
so long as we are sure those languages are 
known as well to the worst of men, who are 
both most able and most diligent to instil the 
poison they suck, first into the courts of princes, 
acquainting them with the choicest delights 
and criticisms of sin. As perhaps did that 
Petronius whom Nero called his arbiter, the 
master of his revels; and that notorious ri- 
bald 2 of Arezzo, dreaded, and yet dear to the 
Italian courtiers. I name not him for pos- 
terity's sake, whom Harry the VIII named 
in merriment his vicar of hell. By which com- 
pendious way all the contagion that foreign 
books can infuse will find a passage to the people 
far easier and shorter than an Indian voyage, 
though it could be sailed either by the north 
of Cataio eastward or of Canada westward, 



1 A word in the margin to be substituted in reading 
for the Chetiv (Kethib), an erroneous or unintelligible 
word in the text. 2 Pietro Aretino 



while our Spanish licensing gags the English 

press never so severely 

See the ingenuity of truth, who when she 
gets a free and willing hand, opens herself 
faster than the pace of method and discourse 
can overtake her. It was the task which I 
began with, to show that no nation, or well 
instituted state, if they valued books at all, did 
ever use this way of licensing; and it might 
be answered, that this is a piece of prudence 
lately discovered; to which I return, that as it 
was a thing slight and obvious to think on, so 
if it had been difficult to find out, there wanted 
not among them long since who suggested such 
a course; which they not following, leave us 
a pattern of their judgment, that it was not the 
not knowing, but the not approving, which was 
the cause of their not using it. Plato, a man 
of high authority indeed, but least of all for 
his Commonwealth, in the book of his laws, 
which no city ever yet received, fed his fancy 
with making many edicts to his airy burgo- 
masters, which they who otherwise admire 
him wish had been rather buried and excused 
in the genial cups of an academic night-sitting. 
By which laws he seems to tolerate no kind of 
learning, but by unalterable decree, consisting 
most of practical traditions, to the attainment 
whereof a library of smaller bulk than his own 
dialogues would be abundant. And there also 
enacts that no poet should so much as read to 
any private man what he had written, until the 
judges and law-keepers had seen it and allowed 
it; but that Plato meant this law peculiarly 
to that Commonwealth which he had imagined, 
and to no other, is evident. Why was he not 
else a law-giver to himself, but a transgressor, 
and to be expelled by his own magistrates, 
both for the wanton epigrams and dialogues 
which he made, and his perpetual reading of 
Sophron Mimus ' and Aristophanes, books of 
grossest infamy, and also for commending the 
latter of them, though he were the malicious 
libeller of his chief friends, to be read by the 
tyrant Dionysius, who had little need of such 
trash to spend his time on ? But that he knew 
this licensing of poems had reference and de- 
pendence to many other provisos there set 
down in his fancied republic, which in this 
world could have no place; and so neither he 
himself, nor any magistrate, or city ever imi- 
tated that course, which taken apart from those 
other collateral injunctions must needs be vain 

1 Plato's dialogues are said to have been modeled 
on the mimes of Sophron. 



•3° 



JOHN MILTON 



and fruitless. For if they fell upon one kind of 
strictness, unless their care were equal to regu- 
late all other things of like aptness to corrupt 
the mind, that single endeavour they knew 
would be but a fond labour: to shut and fortify 
one gate against corruption, and be necessi- 
tated to leave others round about wide open. 
If we think to regulate printing, thereby to 
rectify manners, we must regulate all recrea- 
tions and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. 
No music must be heard, nor song be set or 
sung, but what is grave and doric. There must 
be licensing dancers, that no gesture, motion, 
or deportment be taught our youth but what 
by their allowance shall be thought honest; 
for such Plato was provided of. It will ask 
more than the work of twenty licensers to ex- 
amine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars 
in every house; they must not be suffered to 
prattle as they do, but must be licensed what 
they may say. And who shall silence all the 
airs and madrigals that whisper softness in 
chambers? The windows also, and the bal- 
conies must be thought on; there are shrewd 
books with dangerous frontispieces set to sale; 
who shall prohibit them? shall twenty licen- 
sers? The villages also must have their vis- 
itors to inquire what lectures the bagpipe and 
the rebec reads, even to the ballatry and the 
gamut of every municipal fiddler, for these 
are the countryman's Arcadias and his Mon- 
temayors. 1 Next, what more national corrup- 
tion, for which England hears ill abroad, than 
household gluttony? who shall be the rectors 
of our daily rioting? and what shall be done to 
inhibit the multitudes that frequent those houses 
where drunkenness is sold and harboured? 
Our garments also should be referred to the 
licensing of some more sober work-masters to 
see them cut into a less wanton garb. Who 
shall regulate all the mixed conversation of 
our youth male and female together, as is the 
fashion of this country? who shall still appoint 
what shall be discoursed, what presumed, and 
no further? Lastly, who shall forbid and 
separate all idle resort, all evil company? 
These things will be, and must be; but how 
they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing, 
herein consists the grave and governing wisdom 
of a state. To sequester out of the world into 
Atlantic and Utopian polities, which never can 
be drawn into use, will not mend our condition; 



1 Montemavor was the author of a pastoral ro- 
mance in Spanish called Diana, which was very 
famous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 



but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil, 
in the midst whereof God hath placed us un- 
avoidably. Nor is it Plato's licensing of books 
will do this, which necessarily pulls along with 
it so many other kinds of licensing, as will 
make us all both ridiculous and weary, and yet 
frustrate; but those unwritten, or at least un- 
constraining laws of virtuous education, reli- 
gious and civil nurture, which Plato there 
mentions as the bonds and ligaments of the 
commonwealth, the pillars and the sustainers 
of every written statute; these they be which 
will bear chief sway in such matters as these, 
when all licensing will be easily eluded. Im- 
punity and remissness, for certain, are the bane 
of a commonwealth; but here the great art 
lies to discern in what the law is to bid restraint 
and punishment, and in what things persuasion 
only is to work. If every action which is good, 
or evil in man at ripe years, were to be under 
pittance and prescription and compulsion, 
what were virtue but a name, what praise could 
be then due to well-doing, what gramercy l 
to be sober, just or continent? 

I lastly proceed from the no good it can do, 
to the manifest hurt it causes, in being first the 
greatest discouragement and affront that can 
be offered to learning and to learned men. 
It was the complaint and lamentation of pre- 
lates upon every least breath of a motion to 
remove pluralities and distribute more equally 
church revenues, that then all learning would 
be forever dashed and discouraged. But as 
for that opinion, I never found cause to think 
that the tenth part of learning stood or fell 
with the clergy; nor could I ever but hold 
it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any 
churchman who had a competency left him. 
If therefore ye be loath to dishearten utterly 
and discontent, not the mercenary crew of 
false pretenders to learning, but the free and 
ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born 
to study and love learning for itself, not for 
lucre or any other end but the service of God 
and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame 
and perpetuity of praise which God and good 
men have consented shall be the reward 
of those whose published labours advance the 
good of mankind, then know, that so far to 
distrust the judgment and the honesty of one 
who hath but a common repute in learning and 
never yet offended, as not to count him fit to 
print his mind without a tutor and examiner, 

1 thanks 



AREOPAGITICA 



I 3 I 



lest he should drop a schism or something of 
corruption, is the greatest displeasure and in- 
dignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be 
put upon him. What advantage is it to be 
a man over it is to be a boy at school, if we 
have only escaped the ferular to come under 
the fescue 1 of an Imprimatur? if serious and 
elaborate writings, as if they were no more than 
the theme of a grammar lad under his peda- 
gogue, must not be uttered without the cur- 
sory eyes of a temporising and extemporising 
licenser? He who is not trusted with his own 
actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and 
standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has 
no great argument to think himself reputed in 
the commonwealth wherein he was born for 
other than a fool or a foreigner. When a man 
writes to the world, he summons up all his rea- 
son and deliberation to assist him; he searches, 
meditates, is industrious, and likely consults 
and confers with his judicious friends; after 
all which done he takes himself to be informed 
in what he writes as well as any that writ 
before him; if in this the most consummate 
act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no 
industry, no former proof of his abilities can 
bring him to that state of maturity as not to be 
still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry 
all his considerate diligence, all his midnight 
watchings, and expense of Palladian oil, to 
the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, per- 
haps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior 
in judgment, perhaps one who never knew 
the labour of book-writing, and if he be not 
repulsed or slighted, must appear in print like 
a puny 2 with his guardian and his censor's 
hand on the back of his title to be his bail and 
surety, that he is no idiot or seducer, it can- 
not be but a dishonour and derogation to the 
author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity 
of learning. 

And what if the author shall be one so copious 
of fancy as to have many things well worth 
the adding come into his mind after licensing, 
while the book is yet under the press, which not 
seldom happens to the best and diligentest 
writers; and that perhaps a dozen times in one 
book? The printer dares not go beyond his 
licensed copy; so often then must the author 
trudge to his leave-giver, that those new 
insertions may be viewed; and many a jaunt 
will be made ere that licenser, for it must be 

1 A small wire or twig used by teachers to point to 
the letters or words which the child is to read or pro- 
nounce. 2 minor 



the same man, can either be found, or found at 
leisure; meanwhile either the press must stand 
still, which is no small damage, or the author 
lose his accuratest thoughts and send the book 
forth worse than he had made it, which to a 
diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and 
vexation that can befall. 

And how can a man teach with authority, 
which is the life of teaching, how can he be 
a doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else 
had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all 
he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the 
correction of his patriarchal licenser to blot or 
alter what precisely accords not with the hide- 
bound humour which he calls his judgment; 
when every acute reader upon the first sight of 
a pedantic license, will be ready with these like 
words to ding the book a coit's distance from 
him: I hate a pupil teacher, I endure not an 
instructor that comes to me under the ward- 
ship of an overseeing fist; I know nothing of 
the licenser, but that I have his own hand here 
for his arrogance; who shall warrant me his 
judgment? The state, Sir, replies the stationer; 
but has a quick return, the state shall be my 
governors, but not my critics; they may be 
mistaken in the choice of a licenser as easily 
as this licenser may be mistaken in an author: 
this is some common stuff; and he might add 
from Sir Francis Bacon, that such authorised 
books are but the language of the times. For 
though a licenser should happen to be judicious 
more than ordinary, which will be a great 
jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very 
office and his commission enjoins him to let 
pass nothing but what is vulgarly received 
already. 

Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work 
of any deceased author, though never so famous 
in his lifetime and even to this day, come to 
their hands for license to be printed or reprinted, 
if there be found in his book one sentence of a 
venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and 
who knows whether it might not be the dictate 
of a divine spirit, yet not suiting with every low 
decrepit humour of their own, though it were 
Knox himself, the reformer of a kingdom, that 
spake it, they will not pardon him their dash; 
the sense of that great man shall to all posterity 
be lost for the fearfulness or the presumptuous 
rashness of a perfunctory licenser. And to 
what an author this violence hath been lately 
done, and in what book of greatest consequence 
to be faithfully published, I could now instance, 
but shall forbear till a more convenient season. 
Yet if these things be not resented seriously 



132 



JOHN MILTON 



and timely by them who have the remedy in 
their power, but that such iron moulds as these 
shall have authority to gnaw out the choicest 
periods of exquisites! hooks, and to commit such 
a treacherous fraud against the orphan remain- 
ders of worthiest men after death, the more 
sorrow will belong to that hapless race of men, 
whose misfortune it is to haw understanding. 
Henceforth let no man care to learn, or care 
to be more than worldly wise; for certainly 
in higher matters to he ignorant and slothful, 
to be a common steadfast dunce, will he the 
only pleasant life and only in request. 

And as it is a particular disesteem of every 
knowing person alive, and most injurious to 
the written labours and monuments of the 
dead, so to me it seems an undervaluing and 
vilifying of the whole nation. I cannot set 
so light by all the invention, the art, the wit, 
the grave and solid judgment which is in Eng- 
land, as that it can be comprehended in any 
twenty capacities how good soever; much less 
that it should not pass except their superin- 
tendence he over it, except it he sifted and 
strained with their strainers, that it should 
be uncurrent without their manual stamp. 
Truth and understanding are not such wares 
as to be monopolised and traded in by tickets 
and statutes and standards. We must not 
think to make a Staple commodity of all the 
knowledge in the land, to mark and license it 
like our broadcloth and our wool packs. What 
is it but a servitude like that imposed by the 
Philistines, not to be allowed the sharpening of 
our own axes and coulters, but we must repair 
from all quarters to twenty licensing forges. 
Had any one written ami divulged erroneous 
things ami scandalous to honest life, misusing 
and forfeiting the esteem had of his reason 
among men, if after conviction this only cen- 
sure were adjudged him, that he should never 
henceforth write but what were first examined 
by an appointed officer, whose hand should be 
annexed to pass his credit for him that now he 
might be safely read, it could not be appre- 
hended less than a disgraceful punishment. 
Whence to include the whole nation, and those 
that never vet thus offended, under such a 
diffident and suspectful prohibition, may 
plainly be understood what a disparagement 
it is. So much the more, whenas debtors 
and delinquents may walk abroad without a 
keeper, but unotTensive books must not stir 
forth without a visible jailor in their title. Nor 
is it to the common people less than a reproach; 
for if we be so jealous over them as that we 



dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, 
what do we but censure them for a giddy, 
vicious, and ungrounded people, in such a 
sick and weak estate of faith and discretion, 
as to be able to take nothing down but through 
the pipe of a licenser? That this is care or 
love of them, we cannot pretend, whenas in 
those popish places where the laity are most 
hated and despised the same strictness is used 
over them. Wisdom we cannot call it, because 
it stops but one breach of license, nor that 
neither; whenas those corruptions which it 
seeks to prevent, break in faster at other doors 

which cannot be shut 

And lest some should persuade ye, Lords 
and Commons, that these arguments of learned 
men's discouragement at this your order, are 
mere flourishes and not real, I could recount 
what 1 have seen and heard in other countries, 
where this kind of inquisition tyrannises; 
when 1 have sat among their learned men, for 
that honour I had, and been counted happy to 
be born in such a place of philosophic freedom 
as they supposed England was, while them- 
selves did nothing but bemoan the servile 
condition into which learning amongst them 
was brought; that this was it which had 
damped the glory of Italian wits, that nothing 
had been there written now these many years 
but flattery and fustian. There it was that 1 
found and visited the famous Galileo grown 
old, a prisoner to the inquisition, for think- 
ing in astronomy otherwise than the Francis- 
can and Dominican licensers thought. And 
though I knew that England then was groaning 
loudest under the prelatical yoke, nevertheless 
I took it as a pledge of future happiness, that 
other nations were so persuaded of her liberty. 
Yet was it beyond my hope that those worthies 
were then breathing in her air, who should be 
her leaders to such a deliverance as shall never 
be forgotten by any revolution of time that this 
world hath to finish. When that was once 
begun, it was as little in my fear, that what 
words of complaint I heard among learned men 
of other parts uttered against the inquisition, 
the same I should hear by as learned men at 
home uttered in time of parliament against an 
order of licensing; and that so generally, that 
when I disclosed myself a companion of their 
discontent, I might say, if without envy, that 
he whom an honest quaestorship had endeared 
to the Sicilians, was not more by them impor- 
tuned against Yerres than the favourable opin- 
ion which I had among many who honour ye 
and are known and respected by ye, loaded me 



AREOPAGITICA 



*33 



with entreaties and persuasions, that I would 
not despair to lay together that which just 
reason should bring into my mind toward the 
removal of an undeserved thraldom upon 
learning. That this is not therefore the dis- 
burdening of a particular fancy, but the com- 
mon grievance of all those who had prepared 
their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch 
to advance truth in others and from others to 
entertain it, thus much may satisfy. And in 
their name I shall for neither friend nor foe con- 
ceal what the general murmur is; that if it come 
to inquisitioning again and licensing, and that 
we are so timorous of ourselves, and so suspi- 
cious of all men, as to fear each book, and the 
shaking of every leaf, before we know what the 
contents are, if some who but of late were little 
better than silenced from preaching, shall 
come now to silence us from reading except 
what they please, it cannot be guessed what is 
intended by some but a second tyranny over 
learning; and will soon put it out of con- 
troversy that bishops and presbyters are the 
same to us both name and thing. 

There is yet behind of what T purposed to 
lay open, the incredible loss and detriment that 
this plot of licensing puts us to. More than 
if some enemy at sea should stop up all our 
havens and ports and creeks, it hinders and 
retards the importation of our richest mer- 
chandise, truth; nay, it was first established 
and put in practice by anti-Christian malice 
and mystery on set purpose to extinguish, if 
it were possible, the light of reformation, and 
to settle falsehood, little differing from that 
policy wherewith the Turk upholds his Alco- 
ran, by the prohibition of printing. 'Tis not 
denied, but gladly confessed, we are to send 
our thanks and vows to heaven louder than 
most of nations for that great measure of truth 
which wc enjoy, especially in those main points 
between us and the pope with his appertinences 
the prelates; but he who thinks we are to pitch 
our tent here, and have attained the utmost 
prospect of reformation that the mortal glass 
wherein we contemplate can show us till we 
come to beatific vision, that man by this very 
opinion declares that he is yet far short of 
truth. 

Truth indeed came once into the world with 
her divine Master, and was a perfect shape 
most glorious to look on; but when he as- 
cended, and his apostles after him were laid 
asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of 
deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyp- 



tian Typhon with his conspirators how they 
dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin 
Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand 
pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. 
From that time ever since, the sad friends of 
Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the care- 
ful search that Isis made for the mangled body 
of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb 
by limb still as they could find them. We have 
not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, 
nor ever shall do, till her Master's second 
coming; he shall bring together every joint 
and member, and shall mould them into an 
immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. 
Suffer not these licensing prohibitions to stand 
at every place of opportunity forbidding and 
disturbing them that continue seeking, that 
continue to do our obsequies to the torn body 
of our martyred saint. We boast our light; 
but if we look not wisely On the sun itself, it 
smites us into darkness. Who can discern 
those planets that are oft combust, 1 and those 
stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set 
with the sun, until the opposite motion of their 
orbs bring them to such a place in the firma- 
ment, where they may be seen evening or 
morning? The light which we have gained, 
was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by 
it to discover onward things more remote from 
our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a 
priest, the unmitring of a bishop, and the re- 
moving him from off the Presbyterian shoulders 
that will make us a happy nation; no, if other 
things as great in the church and in the rule of 
life both economical and political be not looked 
into and reformed, we have looked so long 
upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin hath 
beaconed up to us, that we are stark blind. 
There be who perpetually complain of schisms 
and sects, and make it such a calamity that any 
man dissents from their maxims. 'Tis their 
own pride and ignorance which causes the 
disturbing, who neither will hear with meekness 
nor can -convince; yet all must be suppressed 
which is not found in their syntagma. 15 They 
are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, 
who neglect and permit not others to unite 
those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting 
to the body of Truth. To be still searching 
what we know not by what we know, still 
closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all 
her body is homogeneal, and proportional), 
this is the golden rule in theology as well as 
in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony 

1 very close to the sun 2 system 



f 34 



JOHN MILTON 



in a church, not the forced and outward union 

of cold and neutral and inwardlv divided minds. 

Lords and Commons of England, consider 

what nation it is whereof ye are the governors: 
a nation not slow and dull, hut of a quick, 
ingenious, ami piercing spirit, acute to invent, 
subtle ami sinewy to discourse, not beneath 
the reach of any point the highest that human 
capacity can soar to. Therefore the studies 
of learning in her deepest sciences have been 
so ancient and so eminent among us, that 
writers of good antiquity and ablest judgment 
have been persuaded that even the school of 
Pythagoras and the Persian wisdom look begin- 
ning from the old philosophy of this island. 
And that wise and civil Roman, Julius Agricola, 
who governed once here for Csesar, preferred 
the natural wits of Britain before the laboured 
studies of the French. Nor is it for nothing 
that the grave and frugal Transvlvanian sends 
out yearly from as far as the mountainous 
borders of Russia and beyond the Ilercynian 
wilderness, not their youth, but their staid 
men, to learn our language and our theologic 
arts. Vet that which is above all this, the 
favour and the love of heaven, we have great 
argument to think in a peculiar manner pro- 
pitious and propending towards us. Why else 
was this nation chosen before any other, that 
out of her as out of Sion should be proclaimed 
and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet 
of reformation to all Europe? And had it not 
been the obstinate pcrvcrscness of our prelates 
against the divine and admirable spirit of 
Wiclif, to suppress him as a schismatic and inno- 
vator, perhaps neither the Bohemian 1 hiss and 
Jerome, no, nor the name of Luther or of Cal- 
vin had been ever known; the glory of reform- 
ing all our neighbours had been completely 
ours. Hut now, as our obdurate clergy have 
with violence demeaned the matter, we are 
become hitherto the latest and the backwardest 
scholars, of whom God offered to have made 
us the teachers. 

Now once again by all concurrence of signs 
and by the general instinct of holy and devout 
men, as they daily and solemnly express their 
thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new 
and great period in his church, even to the re- 
forming of reformation itself. What iloes he 
then but reveal himself to his servants, ami as 
his manner is, lust to his Englishmen; 1 say 
as his manner is, first to us, though we mark 
not the method of his counsels and are un- 
worthy? Behold now this vast city: a city 
of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, en- 



compassed and surrounded with his protec- 
tion; the shop of war hath not there more an- 
vils and hammers waking, to fashion out the 
plates and instruments of armed justice in 
defence of beleaguered truth, than there be 
pens and heads there, sitting by their studious 
lamps, musing, searching, revolving new no- 
tions and ideas wherewith to present as with 
their homage and their fealty the approaching 
reformation, others as fast reading, trying all 
things, assenting to the force of reason and 
convincement. What could a man require 
more from a nation so pliant and so prone to 
seek after knowledge? What wants there to 
such a towardlv and pregnant soil but wise and 
faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, 
a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies? 
We reckon more than live months yet to har- 
vest; there need not be five weeks; had we 
but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. 

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puis- 
sant nation rousing herself like a strong man 
after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. 
Methinks I see her as an eagle muing her 
mighty youth, and kindling her undaz/.led eyes 
at the full midday beam, purging and unseal- 
ing her long abused sight at the fountain itself 
of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of 
timorous ami flocking birds, with those also 
that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed 
at what she means, and in their envious 
gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and 
schisms. 

What should ye do then, should ye suppress 
all tins flowery crop of knowledge ami new 
light sprung up ami yet springing daily in this 
city, should ye set an oligarchy of twenty in- 
grossers over it, to bring a famine upon our 
minds again, when we shall know nothing but 
what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe 
it, Lords and Commons, they who counsel ye 
to such a suppressing do as good as bid ye 
suppress yourselves; and I will soon show 
how. If it be desired to know the immediate 
cause of all this free writing and free speaking, 
there cannot be assigned a truer than your own 
mild and free and humane government; it is 
the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your 
own valorous and happy counsels have pur- 
chased us, liberty which is the nurse oi all 
great wits; this is that which hath raritied 
and enlightened our spirits like the influence of 
heaven; this is that which hath enfranchised, 
enlarged and lifted up our apprehensions de- 
crees above themselves. Ye cannot make us 



AREOPAGITICA 



*35 



now less capable, less knowing, less eagerly 
pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make 
yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less 
the founders of our true liberty. We can 
grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slav- 
ish, as ye found us; but you then must first 
become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, 
arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from 
whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are 
now more capacious, our thoughts more erected 
to the search and expectation of greatest and 
exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue 
propagated in us; ye cannot suppress that un- 
less ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless 
law, that fathers may despatch at will their own 
children. And who shall then stick closest to 
ye, and excite others? Not he who takes up 
arms for coat and conduct and his four nobles 
of Danegelt. 1 Although I dispraise not the 
defence of just immunities, yet love my peace 
better, if that were all. Give me the liberty 
to know, to utter, and to argue freely accord- 
ing to conscience, above all liberties. 

What would be best advised them, if it be 
found so hurtful and so unequal to suppress 
opinions for the newness or the unsuitableness 
to a customary acceptance, will not be my 
task to say; I only shall repeat what I have 
learned from one of your own honourable num 
ber, a right noble and pious lord, who had he 
not sacrificed his life and fortunes to the church 
and commonwealth, we had not now missed 
and bewailed a worthy and undoubted patron 
of this argument. Ye know him I am sure; 
yet I for honour's sake (and may it be eternal 
to him !) shall name him, the Lord Brook. He 
writing of episcopacy, and by the way treating 
of sects and schisms, left ye his vote, or rather 
now the last words of his dying charge, which 
I know will ever be of dear and honoured re- 
gard with ye, so full of meekness and breath- 
ing charity, that next to His last testament, 
Who bequeathed love and peace to His disci- 
ples, I cannot call to mind where I have read 
or heard words more mild and peaceful. He 
there exhorts us to hear with patience and hu- 
mility those, however they be miscalled, that 
desire to live purely, in such a use of God's 
ordinances, as the best guidance of their con- 
science gives them, and to tolerate them, though 
in some disconformity to ourselves. The book 
itself will tell us more at large being published 
to the world and dedicated to the parliament 
by him who, both for his life and for his death, 



deserves that what advice he left be not laid by 
without perusal. 

And now the time in special is by privilege 
to write and speak what may help to the further 
discussing of matters in agitation. The temple 
of Janus with his two conlroversal ' faces might 
now not unsignificantly be set open. And 
though all the winds of doctrine were let loose 
to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, 
we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting 
to misdoubt her strength. Let her and False- 
hood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to 
the worse in a free and open encounter? Her 
confuting is the best and surest suppressing. 
He who hears what praying there is for light 
and clearer knowledge to be sent down among 
us, would think of other matters to be consti- 
tuted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed 
and fabricked already to our hands. Yet when 
the new light which we beg for shines in upon 
us, there be who envy and oppose, if it come not 
first in at their casements. What a collusion is 
this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man 
to use diligence, to seek for wisdom as for 
hidden treasures early and late, that another 
order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by 
statute ! When a man hath been labouring 
the hardest labour in the deep mines of know- 
ledge, hath furnished out his findings in all 
their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were 
a battle 2 ranged, scattered and defeated all 
objections in his way, calls out his adversary 
into the plain, offers him the advantage of 
wind and sun, if he please, only that he may 
try the matter by dint of argument, for his op- 
ponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to 
keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the 
challenger should pass, though it be valour 
enough in soldiership, is but weakness and 
cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who 
knows not that Truth is strong next to the 
Almighty? She needs no policies, no strata- 
gems, nor licensings to make her victorious; 
those are the shifts and the defences that Error 
uses against her power. Give her but room, 
and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then 
she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, 
who spake oracles only when he was caught and 
bound; but then rather she turns herself into 
all shapes except her own, and perhaps tunes 
her voice according to the time, as Micaiah did 
before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own 
likeness. 

Yet is it not impossible that she may have 



1 A tax levied for defense against the Danes. 



1 turned opposite ways 2 battalion 



r 3 6 



JEREMY TAYLOR 



more shapes than one. What else is all that 
rank of things indifferent, wherein Truth may 
be on this side or on the other without being 

unlike herself? 

In the meanwhile if any one would write, 
and bring his helpful hand to the slow-moving 
reformation which we labour under, if Truth 
have spoken to him before others, or but seemed 
at least to speak, who hath so bejesuited us 
that we should trouble that man with asking 
license to do so worthy a deed? And not 
consider this, that if it come to prohibiting, 
there is not aught more likely to be prohibited 
than truth itself; whose first appearance to 
our eves, bleared and dimmed with prejudice 
and custom, is more unsightly and implausible 
than many errors, even as the person is of 
many a great man slight and contemptible to 
see to. And what do they tell us vainly of new 
opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that 
none must be heard but whom they like, is the 
worst and newest opinion of all others; and is 
the chief cause why sects and schisms do so 
much abound, and true knowledge is kept at 
distance from us? Besides yet a greater dan- 
ger which is in it: for when God shakes a king- 
dom with strong and healthful commotions 
to a general reforming, 'tis not untrue that 
many sectaries and false teachers are then busi- 
est in seducing; but yet more true it is, that 
Clod then raises to his own work men of rare 
abilities and more than common industry not 
only to look back and revise what hath been 
taught heretofore, but to gain further and go 
on some new enlightened steps in the discovery 
of truth. For such is the order of God's en- 
lightening his church, to dispense and deal out 
by degrees his beam, so as our earthly eyes 
may biesl sustain it. Neither is God appointed 
and confined, where and out of what place these 
his chosen shall be first heard to speak; for he 
sees not as man sees, chooses not as manchooses, 
lest we should devote ourselves again to set 
places and assemblies and outward callings of 
men, planting our faith one while in the old 
convocation house, and another while in the 
chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and 
religion that shall be there canonised, is not 
Sufficient, without plain convincement and the 
charity of patient instruction, to supple the 
leasl bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest 
Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, 
and not in the letter of human trust, for all the 
number of voices that can be there made; no, 
though Harry the VII himself there, with 
all his liege tombs about him, should lend 



them voices from the dead, to swell their 
number. 

And if the men be erroneous who appear to 
be the leading schismatics, what withholds us 
but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the 
right cause, that we do not give them gentle 
meetings and gentle dismissions, that we de- 
bate not and examine the matter thoroughly 
with liberal and frequent audience; if not for 
their sakes, vet for our own, seeing no man 
who hath tasted learning, but will confess the 
many ways of profiting by those who not con- 
tented with stale receipts are able to manage 
and set forth new positions to the world? And 
were they but as the dust and cinders of our 
feet, so long as in that notion they may serve 
to polish and brighten the armory of Truth, even 
for that respect they were not utterly to be 
cast away. But if they be of those whom God 
hath fitted for the special use of these times 
with eminent and ample gifts, and those per- 
haps neither among the priests nor among the 
Pharisees, and we in the haste of a precipitant 
zeal shall make no distinction, but resolve to 
stop their mouths, because we fear they come 
with new and dangerous opinions, as we com- 
monly forejudge them ere we understand them, 
no less than woe to us, while, thinking thus to 
defend the gospel, we are found the persecutors. 



JEREMY TAYLOR (1613-1667) 

THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY 
DYING 

CHAP. I. — A GENERAL PREPARATION 

TOWARDS A HOLY AND BLESSID 

DEATH, BY WAY OF CONSIDERATION 

Section II. — [Of the Vanity and Shortness 

of Man's Life]: The Consideration 

reduced to Practice 

It will be very material to our best and no- 
blest purposes, if we represent this scene of 
change and sorrow, a little more dressed up 
in circumstances; for so we shall be more apt 
to practise those rules, the doctrine of which 
is consequent to this consideration. It is a 
mighty change, that is made by the death of 
every person, and it is visible to us, who are 
alive. Reckon but from the sprightfulness of 
youth, and the fair cheeks and full eyes of child- 
hood, from the vigorousness ami strong flexure 
of the joints of five and twenty, to the hollow- 
ness and dead paleness, to the loathsomeness 



THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY DYING 



137 



and horror of a three days' burial, and we shall 
perceive the distance to be very great and very 
strange. But so have I seen a rose newly 
springing from the clefts of its hood, and, at 
first, it was fair as the morning, and full with 
the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece; but when 
a ruder breath had forced open its virgin mod- 
esty, and dismantled its too youthful and unripe 
retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to 
decline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly 
age; it bowed the head, and broke its stalk, 
and, at night, having lost some of its leaves 
and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of 
weeds and outworn faces. The same is the 
portion of every man and every woman; the 
heritage of worms and serpents, rottenness and 
cold dishonour, and our beauty so changed, 
that our acquaintance quickly knew us not; 
and that change mingled with so much horror 
or else meets so with our fears and weak dis- 
coursings, that they who, six hours ago, tended 
upon us, either with charitable or ambitious 
services, cannot, without some regret, stay in 
the room alone, where the body lies stripped 
of its life and honour. I have read of a fair 
young German gentleman, who, living, often 
refused to be pictured, but put off the impor- 
tunity of his friends' desire, by giving way, 
that, after a few days' burial, they might send 
a painter to his vault, and, if they saw cause for 
it, draw the image of his death unto the life. 
They did so, and found his face half eaten, 
and his midriff and backbone full of serpents; 
and so he stands pictured among his armed 
ancestors. So does the fairest beauty change, 
and it will be as bad with you and me; and 
then, what servants shall we have to wait upon 
us in the grave? what friends to visit us? what 
officious people to cleanse away the moist and 
unwholesome cloud reflected upon our faces 
from the sides of the weeping vaults, which are 
the longest weepers for our funeral? 

This discourse will be useful, if we consider 
and practise by the following rules and consid- 
erations respectively. 

1. All the rich and all the covetous men in 
the world will perceive, and all the world will 
perceive for them, that it is but an ill recom- 
pense for all their cares, that, by this time, all 
that shall be left, will be this, that the neigh- 
bours shall say, "He died a rich man;" and yet 
his wealth will not profit him in the grave, but 
hugely swell the sad accounts of doomsday. 
And he that kills the Lord's people with unjust 
or ambitious wars for an unrewarding interest, 
shall have this character, that he threw away 



all the days of his life, that one year might be 
reckoned with his name, and computed by his 
reign or consulship; and many men, by great 
labours and affronts, many indignities and 
crimes, labour only for a pompous epitaph, and 
a loud title upon their marble; whilst those, 
into whose possessions their heirs or kindred 
are entered, are forgotten, and lie unregarded 
as their ashes, and without concernment or 
relation, as the turf upon the face of their 
grave. A man may read a sermon, the best 
and most passionate that ever man preached, 
if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of kings. 
In the same Escurial, where the Spanish princes 
live in greatness and power, and decree war 
or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, 
where their ashes and their glory shall sleep 
till time shall be no more; and where our kings 
have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, 
and they must walk over their grandsire's 
head to take his crown. There is an acre sown 
with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change, 
from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched 
coffins, from living like gods to die like men. 
There is enough to cool the flames of lust, to 
abate the heights of pride, to appease the itch 
of covetous desires, to sully and dash out the 
dissembling colours of a lustful, artificial, and 
imaginary beauty. There the warlike and the 
peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the 
beloved and the despised princes mingle their 
dust, and pay down their symbol of mortality, 
and tell all the world, that, when we die, our 
ashes shall be equal to kings', and our accounts 
easier, and our pains or our crowns shall be 
less. To my apprehension it is a sad record, 
which is left by Athenaeus concerning Ninus, 
the great Assyrian monarch, whose life and 
death are summed up in these words: "Ninus, 
the Assyrian, had an ocean of gold, and other 
riches more than the sand in the Caspian Sea; 
he never saw the stars, and perhaps he never 
desired it; he never stirred up the holy fire 
among the Magi, nor touched his god with the 
sacred rod according to the laws; he never 
offered sacrifice, nor worshipped the deity, 
nor administered justice, nor spake to his 
people, nor numbered them ; but he was most 
valiant to eat and drink, and, having mingled 
his wines, he threw the rest upon the stones. 
This man is dead: behold his sepulchre; and 
now hear where Ninus is. Sometimes I was 
Ninus, and drew the breath of a living man ; 
but now am nothing but clay. I have nothing, 
but what I did eat, and what I served to myself 
in lust, that was and is all my portion. The 



*3* 



JEREMY TAYLOR 



wealth with which I was esteemed blessed, my 
enemies, meeting together, shall bear away, 
as the mad Thyades carry a raw goat. I am 
gone to hell ; and when I went thither, I neither 
carried gold, nor horse, nor silver chariot. I 
that wore a mitre, am now a little heap of dust." 
I know not anything, that can better represent 
the evil condition of a wicked man, or a chang- 
ing greatness. From the greatest secular dig- 
nity to dust and ashes his nature bears him, 
and from thence to hell his sins carry him, and 
there he shall be forever under the dominion 
of chains and devils, wrath and an intolerable 
calamity. This is the reward of an unsancti- 
fied condition, and a greatness ill gotten or 
ill administered. • 

2. Let no man extend his thoughts, or let 
his hopes wander towards future and far-dis- 
tant events and accidental contingencies. This 
day is mine and yours, but ye know not what 
shall be on the morrow; and every morning 
creeps out of a dark cloud, leaving behind it an 
ignorance and silence deep as midnight, and 
undiscerned as are the phantasms that make 
a chrisom-child to smile: so that we cannot 
discern what comes hereafter, unless we had a 
light from heaven brighter than the vision of 
an angel, even the spirit of prophecy. With- 
out revelation, we cannot tell, whether we shall 
eat to-morrow, or whether a squinancy shall 
choke us: and it is written in the unrevealed 
folds of Divine predestination, that many, who 
are this day alive, shall to-morrow be laid upon 
the cold earth, and the women shall weep over 
their shroud, and dress them for their funeral. 
St. James, in his epistle, notes the folly of some 
men, his contemporaries, who were so impa- 
tient of the event of to-morrow, or the accidents 
of next year, or the good or evils of old age, that 
they would consult astrologers and witches, ora- 
cles, and devils, what should befall them the 
next calends: what should be the event of such 
a voyage, what God hath written in his book 
concerning the success of battles, the election 
of emperors, the heirs of families, the price of 
merchandise, the return of the Tyrian fleet, the 
rate of Sidonian carpets; and as they were 
taught by the crafty and lying demons, so they 
would expect the issue; and oftentimes by dis- 
posing their affairs in order towards such events, 
really did produce some little accidents accord- 
ing to their expectation; and that made them 
trust the oracles in greater things, and in all. 
Against this he opposes his counsel, that we 
should not search after forbidden records, much 
less by uncertain significations; for whatsoever 



is disposed to happen by the order of natural 
causes or civil counsels, may be rescinded by 
a peculiar decree of Providence, or be pre- 
vented by the death of the interested persons; 
who, while their hopes are full, and their causes 
conjoined, and the work brought forward, and 
the sickle put into the harvest, and the first- 
fruits offered and ready to be eaten, even then, 
if they put forth their hand to an event, that 
stands but at the door, at that door their body 
may be carried forth to burial, before the ex- 
pectation shall enter into fruition. When 
Richilda, the widow of Albert, earl of Ebers- 
berg, had feasted the emperor Henry III, and 
petitioned in behalf of her nephew YVelpho for 
some lands formerly possessed by the Earl her 
husband; just as the Emperor held out his 
hand to signify his consent, the chamber-floor 
suddenly fell under them, and Richilda falling 
upon the edge of a bathing vessel was bruised 
to death, and stayed not to see her nephew 
sleep in those lands, which the Emperor was 
reaching forth to her, and placed at the door 
of restitution. 

3. As our hopes must be confined, so must 
our designs: let us not project long designs, 
crafty plots, and diggings so deep, that the in- 
trigues of a design shall never be unfolded till 
our grand-children have forgotten our virtues 
or our vices. The work of our soul is cut 
short, facile, sweet, and plain, and fitten to the 
small portions of our shorter life; and as we 
must not trouble our iniquity, so neither must 
we intricate our labour and purposes with 
what we shall never enjoy. This rule does not 
forbid us to plant orchards, which shall feed our 
nephews with their fruit; for by such provi- 
sions they do something towards an imaginary 
immortality, and do charity to their relatives: 
but such projects are reproved, which dis- 
compose our present duty by long and future 
designs; such, which by casting our labours to 
events at distance, make us less to remember 
our death standing at the door. It is fit for a 
man to work for his day's wages, or to contrive 
for the hire of a week, or to lav a train to make 
provisions for such a time, as is within our eye, 
and in our duty, and within the usual periods 
of man's life; for whatsoever is made neces- 
sary, is also made prudent: but while we plot 
and busy ourselves in the toils of an ambitious 
war, or the levies of a great estate, night enters 
in upon us, and tells all the world, how like 
fools we lived, and how deceived and miser- 
ably we died. Seneca tells of Senecio Corne- 
lius, a man crafty in getting, and tenacious in 



JOHN BUNYAN 



139 



holding a great estate, and one who was as 
diligent in the care of his body as of his money, 
curious of his health, as of his possessions, that 
he all day long attended upon his sick and 
dying friend; but, when he went away, was 
quicklv comforted, supped merrily, went to bed 
cheerfully, and on a sudden being surprised by 
a squinancy, scarce drew his breath until the 
morning, but by that time died, being snatched 
from the torrent of his fortune, and the swelling 
tide of wealth, and a likely hope bigger than 
the necessities of ten men. This accident was 
much noted then in Rome, because it happened 
in so great a fortune, and in the midst of wealthy 
designs; and presently it made wise men to 
consider, how imprudent a person he is, who 
disposes of ten years to come, when he is not 
lord of to-morrow. 

4. Though we must not look so far off, and 
pry abroad, yet we must be busy near at hand ; 
we must with all arts of the spirit, seize upon 
the present, because it passes from us while we 
speak, and because in it all our certainty does 
consist. We must take our waters as out of a 
torrent and sudden shower, which will quickly 
cease dropping from above, and quickly cease 
running in our channels here below; this in- 
stant will never return again, and yet, it may 
be, this instant will declare or secure the for- 
tune of a whole eternity. The old Greeks 
and Romans taught us the prudence of this 
rule: but Christianity teaches us the religion 
of it. They so seized upon the present, that 
they would lose nothing of the day's pleasure. 
"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall 
die;" that was their philosophy; and at their 
solemn feasts they would talk of death to 
heighten the present drinking, and that they 
might warm their veins with a fuller chalice, 
as knowing the drink, that was poured upon 
their graves, would be cold and without relish. 
"Break the beds, drink your wine, crown your 
heads with roses, and besmear your curled locks 
with nard; for God bids you to remember 
death:" so the epigrammatist speaks the sense 
of their drunken principles. Something to- 
wards this signification is that of Solomon, 
"There is nothing better for a man, than that 
he should eat and drink, and that he should 
make his soul enjoy good in his labour; for 
that is his portion; for who shall bring him 
to see that, which shall be after him?" But, 
although he concludes all this to be vanity, 
yet because it was the best thing that was then 
commonly known, that they should seize upon 
the present with a temperate use of permitted 



pleasures, I had reason to say, that Christian- 
ity taught us to turn this into religion. For he 
that by a present and constant holiness secures 
the present, and makes it useful to his noblest 
purposes, he turns his condition into his best 
advantage, by making his unavoidable fate 
become his necessary religion. 

To the purpose of this rule is that collect of 
Tuscan Hieroglyphics, which we have from 
Gabriel Simeon. "Our life is very short, 
beauty is a cozenage, money is false, and fugi- 
tive; empire is odious, and hated by them 
that have it not, and uneasy to them that have; 
victory is always uncertain, and peace, most 
commonly, is but a fraudulent bargain; old 
age is miserable, death is the period, and is a 
happy one, if it be not sorrowed by the sins of 
our life: but nothing continues but the effects 
of that wisdom, which employs the present time 
in the acts of a holy religion, and a peaceable 
conscience:" for they make us to live even 
beyond our funerals, embalmed in the spices 
and odours of a good name, and entombed in 
the grave of the holy Jesus, where we shall be 
dressed for a blessed resurrection to the state 
of angels and beatified spirits. 

5. Since we stay not here, being people but 
of a day's abode, and our age is like that of a 
fly, and contemporary with a gourd, we must 
look somewhere else for an abiding city, a 
place in another country to fix our house in, 
whose walls and foundation is God, where we 
must find rest, or else be restless forever. For 
whatsoever ease we can have or fancy here, is 
shortly to be changed into sadness, or tedious- 
ness : it goes away too soon, like the periods of 
our life: or stays too long, like the sorrows 
of a sinner: its own weariness, or a contrary 
disturbance, is its load; or it is eased by its 
revolution into vanity and forgetfulness; and 
where either there is sorrow or an end of joy, 
there can be no true felicity: which, because it 
must be had by some instrument, and in some 
period of our duration, we must carry up our 
affections to the mansions prepared for us 
above, where eternity is the measure, felicity 
is the state, angels are the company, the Lamb 
is the light, and God is the portion and inheri- 
tance. 

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688) 

From THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 

THE FIGHT WITH APOLLYON 

Then I saw in my dream that these good 
companions, when Christian was gone to the 



I-jO 



JOHN BUNYAN 



bottom of the hill, gave him a loaf of bread, 
a bottle of wine, ami a cluster of raisins; and 
then lie went on his way. 

Hut now, in this Valley of Humiliation, poor 
Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone 
but a little way, before he espied a foul fiend 
coming over the field to meet him; his name 
is Apollvon. Then did Christian begin to be 
afraid, and to east in his mind whether to go 
back or to stand his ground. But he consid- 
ered again that he had no armour for his back; 
and. therefore, thought that to turn the back 
to him might give him the greater advantage, 
with case to pierce him with his darts. There- 
fore he resolved to venture and stand his ground; 
For, thought he, had I no more in mine eye 
than the saving of mv life, it would be the best 
way to stand. 

So he went on, and ^.pollyon met him. Now 
the monster was hideous to behold; he was 

clothed with scales, like a fish (and they are 
his pride), he had wings like a dragon, feel like 
a bear, and out of his belly came lire and 
smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a 
lion. When he was come up to Christian, he 
beheld him with, a disdainful countenance, 
and thus began to question with him. 

Apol. Whence come you? and whither are 
you bound? 

Chr. I am come from the City of Destruc- 
tion, which is tin- place of all evil, and am 
going to the City of /ion. 

Apol. By this I perceive thou art one of my 
subjects, for all that country is mine, and I am 
the prince and god of it. Now is it, then, that 
thou hast run away from thy king? Were it 
not that 1 hope thou mayest do me more ser- 
vice, 1 would strike thee now, at one blow, to 
the ground. 

Chr. 1 was born, indeed, in your dominions, 
but your service was hard, and your wages 
such as a man could not live on, "for the wages 
of sin is death;" therefore, when 1 was come 
to years, 1 did as other considerate persons do, 
look out, if, perhaps, I might mend myself. 

Apol. There is no prince that will thus 
lightly lose his subjects, neither will I as yet 
lose thee; but since thou complaincst of thy 
Service and wages, be content to go back; what 
our country will afford, 1 do here promise to 
give thee. 

Chr. Hut T have let myself to another, even 
to the King of princes; and how can I, with 
fairness, go back with thee? 

Apol. Thou hast done in this according to 
the proverb, "Changed a bad for a worse;" 



but it is ordinary for those that have professed 
themselves his servants, after a while to give 
him the slip, and return again to me. Do 
thou so too, and all shall be well. 

Chr. 1 have given him my faith, and sworn 
my allegiance to him; how, then, can I go 
back from this, and not be hanged as a traitor? 

Apol. Thou didst the same to me, and yet 
J am willing to pass by all, if now thou wilt 
yet turn again and go back. 

Chr. What I promised thee was in my 
nonage; and, besides, I count the Prince under 
whose banner now I stand is able to absolve 
me; yea, and to pardon also what I did as 
to mv compliance with thee; and besides, O 
thou destroying Apollyon! to speak truth, I 
like his service, his wages, his servants, his 
government, his company, and country, better 
than thine; and, therefore, leave off to per- 
suade me further; 1 am his servant, and 1 will 
follow him. 

Apol. Consider again, when thou art in cool 
blood, what thou art like to meet with in the 
way that thou goest. Thou knowest that, for 
the most part, his servants come to an ill end, 
because they are transgressors against me and 
my ways. How many of them have been put 
to shameful deaths! and, besides, thou count - 
est his service better than mine, whereas he 
never came yet from the place where he is to 
deliver any that served him out of their hands; 
but as for me, how many times, as all the world 
very well knows, have 1 delivered, cither by 
power or fraud, those that have faithfully 
served me, from him and his, though taken by 
them ; and so 1 will deliver thee. 

Chr. His forbearing at present to deliver 
them is on purpose to try their love, whether 
they will cleave to him to the end; and as 
for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is 
most glorious in their account; for, for present 
deliverance, they do not much expect it, for 
they stav for their glory, and then they shall 
have it, when their Prince comes in his and 
the glory oi the angels. 

Apol. Thou hast already been unfaithful in 
thy service to him; and how dost thou think to 
receive Wages of him? 

Chr. Wherein, O Apollvon! have I been 
unfaithful to him ? 

Apol. Thou didst faint at first setting out, 
when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of 
Despond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to 
be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldcst 
have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off; 
thou didst sinfully sleep, and lose thy choice 



THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 



141 



thing; thou wast, also, almost persuaded to 
go back, at the sight of the lions; and when 
thou talkest of thy journey, and of what thou 
has! heard and seen, thou art inwardly desir- 
ous of vain-glory in all that thou sayest or doest. 

Chr. All this is true, and much more which 
thou hast left out; but the Prince, whom J 
serve and honour, is merciful, and ready to 
forgive; but, besides, these infirmities pos 
Sessed me in thy country, for there I sucked 
them in; and 1 have groaned under them, been 
sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of 
my Prince. 

Apol. Then Apollyon broke out into a 
grievous rage, saying, I am an enemy to this 
Prince; I hate his person, his laws, and people; 
I am come out on purpose to withstand thee. 

Chr. Apollyon, beware what you do; for I 
am in the king's highway, the way of holiness, 
therefore take heed to yourself. 

Apol. Then Apollyon straddled quite over 
the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am 
void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to 
die; for I swear by my infernal den, that thou 
shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul. 

And with that he threw a flaming dart al his 
breast; but Christian had a shield in his hand, 
with which he caught it, and so prevented the 
danger of that. 

Then did Christian draw; for he saw it was 
lime to bestir him: and Apollyon as fast made 
at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the 
which, notwithstanding all that Christian could 
do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his 
head, his hand, and foot. 'Phis made Chris- 
tian give a little back; Apollyon, therefore, 
followed his work amain, and Christian again 
took courage, and resisted as manfully as he 
could. This sore combat lasted for above half 
a day, even till Christian was almost quite 
spent; for you must know, that Christian, by 
reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker 
and weaker. 

Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, 
began to gather up close to Christian, and 
wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; 
and witli that, Christian's sword flew out of his 
hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee 
now. And with that he had almost pressed 
him to death; so that Christian began to de- 
spair of life: but as God would have it, while 
Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby 
to make a full end of this good man, Christian 
nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, 
and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, 
O mine enemy: when I fall, 1 shall arise; " and 



with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made 
him give back, as one that had received his 
mortal wound. Christian perceiving that, 
made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these 
things we are more than conquerors, through 
him that loved us." And with that Apollyon 
spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him 
away, that Christian for a season saw him no 
more. 

In this combat no man can imagine, unless 
he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling 
and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the 
time of the fight — he spake like a dragon ; 
and, on the other side, what sighs and groans 
burst from Christian's heart. 1 never saw him 
all the while give so much as one pleasant look, 
till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with 
his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did 
smile, and look upward; but it was the dread- 
fulest sight that ever I saw. 

VANITY FAIR 

Then I saw in my dream, that when they 
were got out of the wilderness, they presently 
saw a town before them, and the name of that 
town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair 
kept, called Vanity Pair: it is kept all the year 
long; it beareth the name of Vanity Fair, be- 
cause the town where it is kept is lighter than 
vanity; and also because all that is there sold, 
or that cometh thither, is vanity. As is the 
saving of the wise, "All that cometh is vanity." 

This fair is no new-erected business, but a 
thing of ancient standing; I will show you the 
original of it. 

Almost five thousand years agone, there 
were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City as 
these two honest persons are: and Beelzebub, 
Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, 
perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made, 
that their way to the city lay through this town 
of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; 
a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of van- 
ity, and that it should last all the year long: 
therefore at this fair are all such merchandise 
sold, as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, 
preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, 
pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as whores, 
bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, 
servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, 
pearls, precious stones, and what not. 

And, moreover, at this fair there is at all 
times to be seen juggling, cheats, games, plays, 
fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of 
every kind. 



142 



JOHN BUNYAN 



Here are to be seen too, and that for nothing, 
thefts, murders, adulteries, false swearers, and 
that of a blood-red colour. 

And as in other fairs of less moment, there 
are the several rows and streets, under their 
proper names, where such and such wares are 
vended; so here likewise you have the proper 
places, rows, streets (viz. countries and king- 
doms), where the wares of this fair are soonest 
to be found. Here is the Britain Row, the 
French Row, the Italian Row, the Spanish 
Row, the German Row, where several sorts 
of vanities are to be sold. But, as in other 
fairs, some one commodity is as the chief of all 
the fair, so the ware of Rome and her merchan- 
dise is greatly promoted in this fair; only our 
English nation, with some others, have taken a 
dislike thereat. 

Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City 
lies just through this town where this lusty fair 
is kept; and he that will go to the City, and yet 
not go through this town, must needs "go out 
of the world." The Prince of princes him- 
self, when here, went through this town to his 
own country, and that upon a fair day too; 
yea, ami as 1 think, it was Beelzebub, the chief 
lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his 
vanities; yea, would have made him lord of 
the fair, would he but have done him rever- 
ence as he went through the town. Yea, be- 
cause he was such a person of honour, Beel- 
zebub had him from street to street, and showed 
him all the kingdoms of the world in a little 
time, that he might if possible, allure the blessed 
One to cheapen and buy some of his vanities; 
but he had no mind to the merchandise, and 
therefore left the town, without laying out so 
much as one farthing upon these vanities. This 
fair, therefore, is an ancient thing, of long 
standing, and a very great fair. Now these 
Pilgrims, as I said, must needs go through this 
fair. Well, so they did; but, behold, even as 
they entered into the fair, all the people in the 
fair were moved, and the town itself as it were 
in a hubbub about them ; and that for several 
reasons ; for — 

First, The pilgrims were clothed with such 
kind of raiment as was diverse from the rai- 
ment of any that traded in that fair. The 
people, therefore, of the fair, made a greal 
gazing upon them: some said they were fools, 
some they were bedlams, and some they are 
outlandish men. 

Secondly, And as they wondered at their 
apparel, so they did likewise at their speech; 
for few could understand what they said; they 



naturally spoke the language of Canaan, but 
they that kept the fair were the men of this 
world; so that, from one end of the fair to 
the other, they seemed barbarians each to the 
other. 

Thirdly, But that which did not a little amuse 
the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set 
very light by all their wares; they cared not 
so much as to look upon them; and if they 
called upon them to buy, they would put their 
fingers in their ears, and cry, "Turn away 
mine eyes from beholding vanity," and look 
upwards, signifying that their trade and traffic 
was in heaven. 

One chanced mockingly, beholding the car- 
riage of the men, to say unto them, " What will 
ye buy ? " But they, looking gravely upon him, 
answered, "We buy the truth." At that there 
was an occasion taken to despise the men the 
more: some mocking, some taunting, some 
speaking reproachfully, and some calling upon 
others to smite them. At last things came to 
a hubbub, and great stir in the fair, insomuch 
that all order was confounded. Now was word 
presently brought to the great one of the fair, 
who quickly came down, and deputed some of 
his most trusty friends to take these men into 
examination, about whom the fair was almost 
overturned. So the men were brought to 
examination; and they that sat upon them, 
asked them whence they came, whither they 
went, and what they did there in such an un- 
usual garb? The men told the-m, that they 
were pilgrims and strangers in the world, and 
that they were going to their own country, 
which was the heavenly Jerusalem; and that 
they had given no occasion to the men of the 
town, nor yet to the merchandisers, thus to 
abuse them, and to let them in their journey, 
except it was, for that, when one asked them 
what they would buy, they said they would 
buy the truth. But they that were appointed 
to examine them did not believe them to be any 
other than bedlams and mad, or else such as 
came to put all things into a confusion in the 
fair. Therefore they took them and beat 
them, and besmeared them with dirt, and then 
put them into the cage, that they might be made 
a spectacle to all the men of the fair. There, 
therefore, they lay for some time, and were 
made the objects of any man's sport, or malice, 
or revenge, the great one of the fair laughing 
still at all that he fell them. But the men being 
patient, and not rendering railing for railing, but 
contrariwise, blessing, and giving good words 
for hail, and kindness for injuries done, some 



iut 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE 



M3 



men in the fair that were more observing, and 
less prejudiced than the rest, began to check 
and blame the baser sort for their continual 
abuses done by them to the men ; they, there- 
fore, in angry manner, let fly at them again, 
counting them as bad as the men in the cage, 
and telling them that they seemed confeder- 
ates, and should be made partakers of their 
misfortunes. The other replied, that for aught 
they could see, the men were quiet, and sober, 
and intended nobody any harm ; and that 
there were many that traded in their fair, that 
were more worthy to be put into the cage, yea, 
and pillory too, than were the men that they 
had abused. Thus, after divers words had 
passed on both sides, the men behaving them- 
selves all the while very wisely and soberly 
before them, they fell to some blows among 
themselves, and did harm one to another. 
Then were these two poor men brought 
before their examiners again, and there 
charged as being guilty of the late hubbub 
that had been in the fair. So they beat them 
pitifully, and hanged irons upon them, and led 
them in chains up and down the fair, for an 
example and a terror to others, lest any should 
speak in their behalf, or join themselves unto 
them. But Christian and Faithful behaved 
themselves yet more wisely, and received the 
ignominy and shame that was cast upon them, 
with so much meekness and patience, that it 
won to their side, though but few in compari- 
son of the rest, several of the men in the fair. 
This put the other party yet into greater rage, 
insomuch that they concluded the death of 
these two men. Wherefore they threatened, 
that the cage nor irons should serve their turn, 
but that they should die, for the abuse they 
had done, and for deluding the men of the fair. 

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE (1628-1699) 

OBSERVATIONS UPON THE UNITED 
PROVINCES OF THE NETHERLANDS 

CHAP. VIII. — THE CAUSES OF THEIR 
FALL, IN 1672 

It must be avowed, that as this State, in the 
course and progress of its greatness for so 
many years past, has shined like a comet; so, 
in the revolutions of this last summer, it seemed 
to fall like a meteor, and has equally amazed 
the world by the one and the other. When we 
consider such a power and wealth, as was re- 
lated in the last chapter, to have fallen in a 
manner prostrate within the space of one 



month ; so many frontier towns, renowned in 
the sieges and actions of the Spanish wars, en- 
tered like open villages by the French troops, 
without defence, or almost denial; most of 
them without any blows at all, and all of them 
with so few ; their great rivers, that were es- 
teemed an invincible security to the provinces 
of Holland and Utrecht, passed with as much 
ease, and as small resistances, as little fords; 
and in short, the very heart of a nation, so 
valiant of old against Rome, so obstinate 
against Spain, now subdued, and, in a manner, 
abandoning all before their danger appeared: 
we may justly have our recourse to the secret 
and fixed periods of all human greatness, for 
the account of such a revolution ; or rather to 
the unsearchable decrees and irresistible force 
of divine providence; though it seems not more 
impious to question it, than to measure it by 
our scale; or reduce the issues and motions of 
that eternal will and power to a conformity 
with what is esteemed just, or wise, or good, 
by the usual consent, or the narrow compre- 
hension of poor mortal men. 

But, as in the search and consideration even 
of things natural and common, our talent, I 
fear, is to talk rather than to know ; so we may 
be allowed to inquire and reason upon all 
things, while we do not pretend to certainty, or 
call that undeniable truth, which is every day 
denied by ten thousand; nor those opinions 
unreasonable, which we know to be held by 
such, as we allow to be reasonable men; I 
shall therefore set down such circumstances, 
as to me seem most evidently to have con- 
spired in this revolution; leaving the causes 
less discernible to the search of more discern- 
ing persons. 

And first, I take their vast trade, which was 
an occasion of their greatness, to have been 
one likewise of their fall, by having wholly 
diverted the genius of their native subjects, and 
inhabitants, from arms, to traffic and the arts 
of peace; leaving the whole fortune of their 
later wars to be managed by foreign and mer- 
cenary troops; which much abased the cour- 
age of their nation (as was observed in another 
chapter) and made the burghers of so little 
moment towards the defence of their towns; 
whereas in the famous sieges of Haerlem, Alc- 
mer, and Leyden, they had made such brave 
and fierce defences, as broke the heart of the 
Spanish armies, and the fortune of their affairs. 
Next was the peace of Munster, which had 
left them now, for above twenty years, too se- 
cure of all invasions, or enemies at land; and 



144 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE 



so turned their whole application to the strength 
of their forces at sea; which have been since 

exercised with two English wars in that time, 
and enlivened with the small yearly expedi- 
tions into the Straits against the Algerines, 
and other Corsairs of the Mediterranean. 

Another was, their too great parsimony, in 
reforming so many oi their best foreign officers 
and troops, upon the peace of Minister; whose 
valour and conduct had been so great occasions 
of inducing Spain to the councils and conclu- 
sions of that treaty. 

But the greatest of all other, that concurred 
to weaken, and indeed break, the strength of 
their land milice.' was the alteration of their 
State, which happened by the Perpetual Edict of 
Holland and West brie, land, upon the death 
of the last Prince of Orange, for exclusion of 
the power of Stadtholder in their Province, or 
at least the separation of it from the charge 
of Captain-General. Since that time, the main 
design and application of those Provinces has 
been, to work out. by degrees, all the old offi- 
cers, both native and foreign, who had been 
formerly sworn to the Prince of Orange, ami 
were still thought affectionate to the interest 
of that family; and to till the commands of 
their army, with the sons, or kinsmen, of their 
burgomasters, and other officers or deputies 
in the State, whom they esteemed sure to the 
constitutions of their popular government, 
and good enough for an age, where they 
saw no appearance of enemy at land to attack 
them. 

But the humour of kindness to the young 
Prince, both in the people and army, was not 
to be dissolved, or dispersed, by any medi- 
cines, or operations, either of rigour or artifice; 
but grew up insensibly, with the age of the 
Prince, ever presaging some revolution in the 
State, when he should come to the years of as- 
piring, and managing the general affections of 
the people; being a Prince, who joined to the 
great qualities of his Royal blood, the popular 
virtues of his country; silent and thoughtful; 
given to hear, and to inquire; of a sound and 
steady understanding; much firmness in what 
he once resolves, or once denies; great indus- 
try and application to his business, little to his 
pleasures; piety in the religion of his coun- 
try, but with charity to others; temperance un- 
usual to his youth, and to the climate; frugal in 
the common management of his fortune, and 
yet magnificent upon occasion; of great spirit 

1 militia 



and heart, aspiring to the glory of military ac 

tions, with strong ambition to grow great, but 
rather by the service, than the servitude of his 
country. In short, a Prince of many virtues, 
without any appearing mixture of vice. 

In the English war, begun the year 1665, 
the S;ates disbanded all the English troops 
that were then left in their service, dispersing 
the officers and soldiers of our nation, who 
staved with them, into other companies, or 
regiments of their own. After the French in- 
vasion of Flanders, and the strict alliance 
between England and Holland in 1668, they 
did the same by all the French that were re- 
maining in their service: so as the several 
bodies of these two nations, which had ever 
the greatest part in the honour and fortune of 
their wars, were now wholly dissolved, and 
their standing milice composed, in a manner, 
all of their own natives, enervated by the long 
uses and arts of traffic, and oi peace. 

But they were too great a match for any of 
the smaller Princes their neighbours in Ger- 
many; and too secure of any danger from 
Spain, by the knowledge of their forces, as 
well as dispositions; and being strictly allied 
both with England and Sweden, in two sev- 
eral defensive leagues, ami in one common 
triple alliance, they could not foresee any 
danger from France, who, they thought, would 
never have the courage, or force, to enter 
the lists with so mighty confederates; and 
who were sure of a conjunction, whenever 
they pleased, both with the Emperor and 
Spain. 

Besides, they knew that France could not 
attack them, without passing through Flanders 
or Germany: they were sure Spain would not 
sutler it, through the first, if they were backed 
in opposing it, as foreseeing the inevitable loss 
of Flanders, upon that of Holland: and they 
could hardly believe, the passage should be 
yielded by a German Prince, contrary to the 
express will and intentions of the Emperor, as 
well as the common interests of the empire: 
so that they hoped the war would, at least, 
open in their neighbours' provinces, for whose 
defence they resolved to employ the whole 
force of their State; and would have made a 
mighty resistance, if the quarrel had begun at 
any other doors, but their own. 

They could not imagine a conjunction be- 
tween England and France, for the ruin of 
their State; for, being unacquainted with our 
constitutions, they did not foresee, how we 
should find our interest in it, and measured all 






THE UNITED PROVINCES OF THE NETHERLANDS 



145 



states, by thai which they esteemed to be their 
interest. Nor could they believe, that other 
Princes and States of Europe would suffer such 
an addition to be made to the power of France, 
as a conquest of Holland. 

Bi ide these public considerations, there 
were others particular to the factions among 
them: and some of their Ministers were neither 
forward nor supple enough to endeavour the 
early breaking, or di veiling, such conjunc- 
tures, as threatened them; because they were 
not without hopes, they might end in renew 
ing their broken measures with f ranee; which 
those of the commonwealth party were more 
inclined to, by foreseeing the influence that 
their alliances with England must needs have 
in time, towards the restoring of tin; Prince of 
Orange's authority: and they thought at the 
worst, that, whenever a pinch came, they 
could not fail of a safe bargain, in one market 
or other, having so vast a treasure ready to 
employ upon any good occasion. 

These considerations made them commit 
three fatal oversights in their foreign negotia- 
tions: for they made an alliance with Eng- 
land, without engaging a confidence and friend- 
ship: they broke their measures with France, 
without closing new ones with Spain : and they 
reckoned upon the assistances of Sweden, and 
their neighbour-Princes of Germany, without 
making them sure by subsidiary advances, 
before a war began. 

Lastly, the Prince of Orange was approach- 
ing the two and twentieth year of his age, which 
the States of Holland had, since their alliance 
with his Majesty in 1668, ever pretended should 
be the time of advancing him to the charge of 
Captain -General and Admiral of their forces, 
though without that of Stadtholder. But the 
nearer they drew to this period, which was like 
to make a new figure in their government, the 
more desirous some of their Ministers seemed, 
either to decline, or to restrain it. On the 
other side, the Prince grew confident upon the 
former promises, or, at least, intimations, of 
Holland, and the concurring dispositions of the 
other six Provinces to his advancement: and 
his party, spirited by their hopes, and the great 
qualities of this young Prince (now grown 
ripe for action, and for enterprise) resolved to 
bring this point to a sudden decision; against 
which, the other party prepared, and united all 
their defences; so, as this strong disease, that 
had been so long working in the very bowels 
of the State, seemed just upon its crisis; when 
a conjunction of two mighty Kings brought 



upon them a sudden and furious invasion by 
land and sea, at the same time, by a royal fleet 
of above fourscore ships, and an army of as 
many thousand men. 

When the Slates saw this cloud ready to 
break upon them Cafter a long belief, that it 
would blow over) they began, not only to pro 
rid rhelter at home with their usual vigour, 
but to look out for it abroad (though both too 
late). Of the Princes that were their allies, or 
concerned in their danger, such as were far off 
could not be in time; the nearer were unwilling 
to share in a danger they were not prepared for; 
most were content to see the pride of this State 
humbled; some the injuries they had received 
from them, revenged; many would have them 
mortified, that would not have them destroyed; 
and so all resolved to leave them to weather 
the storm, as they could, for one campania; ' 
which, they did not believe, could go far to- 
wards their ruin, considering the greatness of 
their riches, number of their forces, and 
strength of their places. 

The State, in the meantime, had increased 
their troops to seventy thousand men, and had 
begun to repair the fortifications of their fron- 
tier towns : but so great a length of their coun- 
try lay open to the French invasion, by the 
territories of Colen and Liege, and to the Bishop 
of Munster (their inveterate enemy) by West- 
phalia, that they knew not where to expect or 
provide against the first danger: and while 
they divided their forces and endeavours 
towards the securing of so many garrisons, 
they provided for none to any purpose but 
Maestricht; which the French left behind them, 
and fell in upon the towns of the Rhine, and 
the heart of their Provinces. 

Besides, those Ministers, who had still the 
direction of affairs, bent their chief application 
to the strength and order of their fleet, rather 
than of their army: whether more pecked at 
England than France, upon the war and man- 
ner of entering into it : or believing that a vic- 
tory at sea would be the way to a peace with 
this crown: or, hoping their towns would not 
fall so fast, but that, before three or four were 
lost, the business at sea would be decided : or, 
perhaps content, that some ill successes should 
attend the Prince of Orange at his first entrance 
upon the command of their armies, and thereby 
contribute to their designs of restraining his 
authority, while they were forced to leave him 
the name of Captain-General. This, indeed, 

1 campaign 



T46 



JOHN DRYDEN 



was not likely to fail, considering the ill con- 
stitution of their old army, the hasty levies of 
their new, and the height of the factions now 
broken out in the State; which left both the 
towns and the troops in suspense, under whose 
banners they fought, and by whose orders they 
were to be governed, the Prince's or the State's. 

There happened, at the same time, an acci- 
dent unusual to their climate, which was a 
mighty drought in the beginning of the sum- 
mer, that left their waters fordable in places 
where they used to be navigable for boats of 
greatest burden. And this gave them more 
trouble and distraction in the defence, as their 
enemies more facility in the passage of those 
great rivers, which were esteemed no small 
security of their country. 

And in this posture were the affairs of this 
commonwealth, when the war broke out, with 
those fatal events, that must needs attend any 
kingdom, or state, where the violence of a for- 
eign invasion happens to meet with the dis- 
tracted estate of a domestic sedition or discon- 
tent, which, like ill humours in a body, make 
any small wound dangerous, and a great one 
mortal. They were still a great body, but 
without their usual soul; they were a State, 
but it was of the d is- united Provinces. Their 
towns were without order; their burghers with- 
out obedience ; their soldiers without discipline ; 
and all without heart: whereas, in all sieges, 
the hearts of men defend the walls, and not 
walls the men: and indeed, it was the name 
of England joining in the war against them, 
that broke their hearts, and contributed more 
to the loss of so many towns, and so much 
country, than the armies of Munster, or France. 
So that, upon all circumstances considered, it 
seems easier to give an account, what it was 
that lost them so much, than what saved them 
the rest. * * * 

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700) 
From AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 

It was that memorable day, in the first sum- 
mer of the late war, when our navy engaged the 
Dutch; a day wherein the two most mighty 
and best appointed fleets which any age had 
ever seen, disputed the command of the greater 
half of the globe, the commerce of nations, and 
the riches of the universe: while these vast 
floating bodies, on either side, moved against 
each other in parallel lines, and our country- 
men, under the happy conduct of his Royal 



Highness, went breaking, by little and little, 
into the line of the enemies; the noise of the 
cannon from both navies reached our ears about 
the city; so that all men being alarmed with it, 
and in a dreadful suspense of the event, which 
they knew was then deciding, every one went 
following the sound as his fancy led him; and 
leaving the town almost empty, some took 
towards the Park, some cross the river, others 
down it; all seeking the noise in the depth of 
silence. 

Amongst the rest, it was the fortune of Eu- 
genius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander, to be 
in company together: three of them persons 
whom their wit and quality have made known 
to all the town ; and whom I have chose to hide 
under these borrowed names, that they may 
not suffer by so ill a relation as I am going to 
make of their discourse. 

Taking then a barge, which a servant of 
Lisideius had provided for them, they made 
haste to shoot the bridge, and left behind them 
that great fall of waters which hindered them 
from hearing what they desired: after which, 
having disengaged themselves from many 
vessels which rode at anchor in the Thames, 
and almost blocked up the passage towards 
Greenwich, they ordered the watermen to let 
fall their oars more gently; and then every one 
favouring his own curiosity with a strict silence, 
it was not long ere they perceived the air to 
break about them like the noise of distant 
thunder, or of swallows in a chimney: those 
little undulations of sound, though almost 
vanishing before they reached them, yet still 
seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror 
which they had betwixt the fleets. After they 
had attentively listened till such time as the 
sound by little and little went from them, 
Eugenius, lifting up his head, and taking notice 
of it, was the first who congratulated to the 
rest that happy omen of our nation's victory: 
adding, that we had but this to desire in con- 
firmation of it, that we might hear no more 
of that noise which was now leaving the English 
coast. When the rest had concurred in the 
same opinion, Crites, a person of a sharp judg : 
ment, and somewhat too delicate a taste in wit, 
which the world hath mistaken in him for ill 
nature, said, smiling to us, that if the concern- 
ment of this battle had not been so exceeding 
great, he could scarce have wished the victory 
at the price he knew he must pay for it, in being 
subject to the reading and hearing of so many 
ill verses as he was sure would be made on that 
subject. Adding, that no argument could 



AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



147 



'scape some of those eternal rhymers, who 
watch a battle with more diligence than the 
ravens and birds of prey; and the worst of 
them surest to be first in upon the quarry; 
while the better able, either out of modesty 
writ not at all, or set that due value upon their 
poems, as to let them be often desired, and long 
expected. There are some of those imperti- 
nent people of whom you speak, answered 
Lisideius, who, to my knowledge, are already 
so provided, either way, that they can produce 
not only a panegyric upon the victory, but, if 
need be, a funeral elegy on the duke ; wherein, 
after they have crowned his valour with many 
laurels, they will at last deplore the odds under 
which he fell, concluding, that his courage 
deserved a better destiny. . . . 

If your quarrel (said Eugenius) to those who 
now write, be grounded only on your reverence 
to antiquity, there is no man more ready to 
adore those great Greeks and Romans than I 
am : but, on the other side, I cannot think so 
contemptibly of the age in which I live, or so 
dishonourably of my own country, as not to 
judge we equal the ancients in most kinds of 
poesy, and in some surpass them ; neither know 
I any reason why I may not be as zealous for 
the reputation of our age, as we find the ancients 
themselves were in reverence to those who lived 
before them. For you hear your Horace say- 
ing, 

Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse 
Compositum, illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper. 1 

And after: 

Si meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit, 

Scire velim, pretium ckartis quotus arrogcl annus ? 2 

But I see I am engaging in a wide dispute, 
where the arguments are not like to reach close 
on either side ; for poesy is of so large an extent, 
and so many, both of the ancients and moderns, 
have done well in all kinds of it, that in citing 
one against the other, we shall take up more 
time this evening, than each man's occasions 
will allow him : therefore I would ask Crites 
to what part of poesy he would confine his ar- 
guments, and whether he would defend the 
general cause of the ancients against the mod- 

1 I am indignant when anything is blamed, not 
because it is regarded as badly or inelegantly written, 
but because it was written recently. 2 If time 

makes poems better, as it does wines, I should 
like to know what length of years confers value on 
writings. 



erns, or oppose any age of the moderns against 
this of ours. 

Crites, a little while considering upon this 
demand, told Eugenius, that if he pleased he 
would limit their dispute to Dramatic Poesy; 
in which he thought it not difficult to prove, 
either that the ancients were superior to the 
moderns, or the last age to this of ours. 

Eugenius was somewhat surprised, when he 
heard Crites make choice of that subject. For 
aught I see, said he, I have undertaken a harder 
province than I imagined ; for, though I never 
judged the plays of the Greek or Roman poets 
comparable to ours, yet, on the other side, those 
we now see acted come short of many which 
were written in the last age. But my comfort 
is, if we are overcome, it will be only by our own 
countrymen : and if we yield to them in this 
one part of poesy, we more surpass them in all 
the other; for in the epic or lyric way, it will 
be hard for them to show us one such amongst 
them, as we have many now living, or who 
lately were. They can produce nothing so 
courtly writ, or which expresses so much the 
conversation of a gentleman, as Sir John Suck- 
ling; nothing so even, sweet, and flowing, as 
Mr. Waller; nothing so majestic, so correct, 
as Sir John Denham ; nothing so elevated, so 
copious, and full of spirit, as Mr. Cowley. 
As for the Italian, French, and Spanish plays, 
I can make it evident, that those who now 
write, surpass them; and that the drama is 
wholly ours. 

All of them were thus far of Eugenius his 
opinion, that the sweetness of English verse 
was never understood or practised by our 
fathers; even Crites himself did not much 
oppose it: and every one was willing to ac- 
knowledge how much our poesy is improved, 
by the happiness of some writers yet living; 
who first taught us to mould our thoughts into 
easy and significant words, to retrench the 
superfluities of expression, and to make our 
rhyme so properly a part of the verse, that it 
should never mislead the sense, but itself be 
led and governed by it. 

Eugenius was going to continue this discourse, 
when Lisideius told him, that it was necessary, 
before they proceeded further, to take a stand- 
ing measure of their controversy; for how was 
it possible to be decided, who wrote the best 
plays, before we know what a play should be? 
but, this once agreed on by both parties, each 
might have recourse to it, either to prove his 
own advantages, or to discover the failings of 
his adversary. 



148 



JOHN DRYDEN 



He had no sooner said this, but all desired the 
favour of him to give the definition of a play; 
and they were the more importunate, because 
neither Aristotle, nor Horace, nor any other, 
who had writ of that subject, had ever done it. 

Lisideius, after some modest denials, at last 
confessed he had a rude notion of it; indeed 
rather a description than a definition ; but which 
served to guide him in his private thoughts, 
when he was to make a judgment of what 
others writ : that he conceived a play ought to 
be, "A just and lively image of human nature, 
representing its passions and humours, and 
the changes of fortune to which it is subject, 
for the delight and instruction of mankind." 

This definition (though Crites raised a logi- 
cal objection against it — that it was only 
a genere et fine, and so not altogether perfect) 
was vet well received by the rest: and after 
they had given order to the watermen to turn 
their barge, and row softly, that they might 
take the cool of the evening in their return, 
Crites, being desired by the company to begin, 
spoke on behalf of the ancients, in this man- 
ner: — 

If confidence presage a victory, Eugenius, 
in his own opinion, has already triumphed over 
the ancients: nothing seems more easy to him, 
than to overcome those whom it is our greatest 
praise to have imitated well; for we do not only 
build upon their foundations, but by their 
models. Dramatic Poesy had time enough, 
reckoning from Thespis (who first invented it) 
to Aristophanes, to be born, to grow up, and 
to flourish in maturity. It has been observed 
of arts and sciences, that in one and the same 
centurv they have arrived to great perfection: 
and no wonder, since every age has a kind of 
universal genius, which inclines those that live 
in it to some particular studies: the work 
then being pushed on by many hands, must of 
necessity go forward. 

Is it not evident, in these last hundred years, 
(when the study of philosophy has been the 
business of all the Virtuosi in Christendom,) 
that almost a new nature has been revealed to 
us? that more errors of the school have been 
detected, more useful experiments in philoso- 
phy have been made, more noble secrets 
in optics, medicine, anatomy, astronomy, 
discovered, than in all those credulous and 
doting ages from Aristotle to us? — so true it 
is, that nothing spreads more fast than science, 
when rightly and generally cultivated. 

Add to this, the more than common emula- 
tion that was in those times, of writing well; 



which though it be found in all ages, and all 
persons that pretend to the same reputation 
yet poesy being then in more esteem than now 
it is, had greater honours decreed to the pro 
fessors of it, and consequently the rivalship 
was more high between them. They had 
judges ordained to decide their merit, and 
prizes to reward it; and historians have been 
diligent to record of ^Eschylus, Euripides, 
Sophocles, Lycophron, and the rest of them, 
both who they were that vanquished in these 
wars of the theatre, and how often they were 
crowned: while the Asian kings and Grecian 
commonwealths scarce afforded them a nobler 
subject, than the unmanly luxuries of a de- 
bauched court, or giddy intrigues of a factious 
city: Ali! ecniulatio ingenia, (says Patcrculus) 
et mine invidia, mine admiralio incitationem 
aeeendit: Emulation is the spur of wit; and 
sometimes envy, sometimes admiration, quick- 
ens our endeavours. 

But now since the rewards of honour are 
taken away, that virtuous emulation is turned 
into direct malice ; yet so slothful, that it contents 
itself to condemn and cry down others, without 
attempting to do better: 'tis a reputation too 
unprofitable, to take the necessary pains for it; 
vet wishing they had it, that desire is incite- 
ment enough to hinder others from it. And 
this, in short, Eugenius, is the reason, why 
you have now so few good poets, and so many 
severe judges. Certainly, to imitate the an- 
cients well, much labour and long study is 
required; which pains. I have already shown, 
our poets would want encouragement to take, 
if yet they had ability to go through the work. 
Those ancients have been faithful imitators, 
and wise observers of that nature which is so 
torn and ill represented in our plays; they 
have handed down to us a perfect resemblance 
of her; which we, like ill copiers, neglecting 
to look on, have rendered monstrous, and dis- 
figured. But, that you may know how much 
you are indebted to those your masters, and be 
ashamed to have so ill requited them, I must 
remember you, that all the rules by which we 
practise the drama at this day, (either such as 
relate to the justness and symmetry of the plot; 
or the episodical ornaments, such as descrip- 
tions, narrations, and other beauties, which are 
not essential to the play;) were delivered to us 
from the observations which Aristotle made, 
of those poets, who either lived before him, 
or were his contemporaries. We have added 
nothing of our own, except we have the con- 
fidence to say, our wit is better; of which none 






AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



149 



boast in this our age, but such as understand 
not theirs. Of that book which Aristotle has 
left us, iri.pl tt}s HoirjTLKrjs, Horace his "Art of 
Poetry," is an excellent comment, and, I be- 
lieve, restores to us that Second Book of his 
concerning comedy, which is wanting in him. 

Out of these two have been extracted the 
famous rules which the French call Lcs Trois 
Unites, or the Three Unities, which ought to 
be observed in every regular play; namely, of 
time, place, and action. 

The unity of time they comprehend in twenty- 
four hours, the compass of a natural day, or 
as near as it can be contrived; and the reason 
of it is obvious to every one, — that the time 
of the feigned action, or fable of the play, should 
be proportioned as near as can be to the dura- 
tion of that time in which it is represented: 
since therefore all plays are acted on the theatre 
in a space of time much within the compass 
of twenty-four hours, that play is to be thought 
the nearest imitation of nature, whose plot 
or action is confined within that time. And, 
by the same rule which concludes this general 
proportion of time, it follows, that all the parts 
of it are (as near as may be) to be equally sub- 
divided; namely, that one act take not up the 
supposed time of half a day, which is out of 
proportion to the rest; since the other four are 
then to be straitened within the compass of 
the remaining half: for it is unnatural, that one 
act, which being spoke or written, is not longer 
than the rest, should be supposed longer by 
the audience; it is therefore the poet's duty, 
to take care, that no act should be imagined to 
exceed the time in which it is represented on 
the stage ; and that the intervals and inequali- 
ties of time be supposed to fall out between 
the acts. 

This rule of time, how well it has been ob- 
served by the ancients, most of their plays will 
witness. You see them in their tragedies, 
(wherein to follow this rule is certainly most 
difficult,) from the very beginning of their 
plays, falling close into that part of the story 
which they intend for the action, or principal 
object of it, leaving the former part to be de- 
livered by narration : so that they set the au- 
dience, as it were, at the post where the race 
is to be concluded ; and saving them the tedious 
expectation of seeing the poet set out and ride 
the beginning of the course, they suffer you not 
to behold him, till he is in sight of the goal, 
and just upon you. 

For the second unity, which is that of place, 
the ancients meant by it, that the scene ought 



to be continued through the play, in the same 
place where it was laid in the beginning: for 
the stage, on which it is represented, being but 
one and the same place, it is unnatural to con- 
ceive it many; and those far distant from one 
another. I will not deny, but by the varia- 
tion of painted scenes, the fancy (which in these 
cases will contribute to its own deceit) may 
sometimes imagine it several places, with some 
appearance of probability; yet it still carries 
the greater likelihood of truth, if those places 
be supposed so near each other, as in the same 
town or city, which may all be comprehended 
under the larger denomination of one place: 
for a greater distance will bear no proportion 
to the shortness of time which is allotted, in 
the acting, to pass from one of them to another. 
For the observation of this, next to the ancients, 
the French are to be most commended. They 
tie themselves so strictly to the unity of place, 
that you never see in any of their plays, a scene 
changed in the middle of an act: if the act 
begins in a garden, a street, or chamber, 'tis 
ended in the same place; and that you may 
know it to be the same, the stage is so supplied 
with persons, that it is never empty all the time: 
he who enters second, has business with him 
who was on before; and before the second 
quits the stage, a third appears who has busi- 
ness with him. This Corneille calls la liaison 
des Scenes, the continuity or joining of the 
scenes; and 'tis a good mark of a well-con- 
trived play, when all the persons are known 
to each other, and every one of them has some 
affairs with all the rest. 

As for the third unity, which is that of action, 
the ancients meant no other by it than what the 
logicians do by their finis, the end or scope of 
any action; that which is the first in intention, 
and last in execution. Now the poet is to aim 
at one great and complete action, to the carry- 
ing on of which all things in his play, even the 
very obstacles, are to be subservient; and the 
reason of this is as evident as any of the former. 

For two actions equally laboured and driven 
on by the writer, would destroy the unity of 
the poem; it would be no longer one play, 
but two : not but that there may be many ac- 
tions in a play, as Ben Jonson has observed 
in his "Discoveries"; but they must be all 
subservient to the great one, which our lan- 
guage happily expresses in the name of under- 
plots: such as in Terence's "Eunuch" is the 
difference and reconcilement of Thais and 
Phasdria, which is not the chief business of the 
play, but promotes the marriage of Chasrea 



■>5o 



JOHN DRYDEN 



and Chremes's Bister, principally intended by 
the poet. There ought to be but one action, 
says Corneille, that is, one complete action, 
which leaves the mind of the audience In a full 
repose j !>ut this cannot be brought to pass, 
but by many other imperfect actions, which 
conduce to it, and hold the audience In a 
delightful suspense of what will be. 

If by these rules (to Omil many other drawn 

from the precepts and practice of the ancients) 
we should judge our modern plays, 'tis prob- 
able, thai few of them would endure the trial: 
that which should l>e the business of a day, 
takes up in some of diem an age; instead of 

one action, they are the epitomes of a man's 

life, and foronespol of ground (which the Stage 
should represent) we are sometimes in more 
Countries than the map tan show us. 

But it we allow the ancients to have contrived 
well, we must acknowledge them to have writ- 
ten better, Questionless we are deprived of a 
great stock of wit in the loss of Menander among 
the Greek poets, and of Cncilius, Afranius, 

and Yarius, among the Romans. We may 
guess at Menander's excellency, by the plays 
ol Terence, who translated some of his; and 
yet wanted so mueh o\ him, dial he was called 

by i' Caesar the half-Menander; and may 

judge of Yarius, by the testimonies of Horace, 
Martial, and Yclleius Palerculus. "1'is prob- 
able that these, could they he recovered, would 

decide the controversy; hut so long as Aris- 
tophanes and PlautUS are extant, while the 
tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca, 

are in our hands, I can never see one of those 
plays which are now written, hut it increases 

m\ admiration of the ancients. And yet 1 must 

acknowledge further, that to admire them as 
We OUght, We should understand them better 
than we ^o. Pouhtlcss many things appear 
Bat to us, the wit of which depended on some 
custom or story, which never came to our know 
ledge; or perhaps on some criticism in their 
language, which being so King dead, and only 
remaining in their hooks, 'tis not possible they 
should make us understand perfectly. To 

icad Macrobius, explaining the propriety ami 

elegancy of many words in Virgil, which 1 
had before passed over without consideration, 
as common things, is enough to assure me, that 
1 ought to think the same of Terence; and 
that in the purity of his style, (which Tullv so 
much Valued, that he ever carried his works 
about him,) there is yet left in him great room 
lor admiration, if 1 knew hut where to place it. 
In the meantime, 1 must desire you to take 



notice, that the greatest man of the last age 

(Ben Jonson) was willing to give place to 

them in all things: he was not only a pro 

fessed imitator of I lorace, hut a learned plagiary 

of all the others; you (rack him everywhere 
in their snow. If Horace, l.ucan, IVtronius 
Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal, had their own 
from him, there are few serious thoughts which 
are new in him: you will pardon me, therefore, 
if I presume he loved their fashion, when he 
Wore their clothes. Hut since I haw otherwise 
a great veneration for him, and you, Kugcnius, 
prefer him above all other poets, I will use no 
farther argument to you than his example: 
I will produce before you father Hen, dressed 
in all the ornaments and colours of the ancients; 
you will need no Other guide to OUT party, if 

you follow him; ami whether you consider 

the bad plays of our age, or regard the good 
plays of the last, both the best and worst of 
the modern poets will equally instruct you to 
admire the ancients. 

I 'rites had no sooner left speaking, but 
Eugenius, who had waited with some impa- 
tience for it, thus began: — 

I have observed in your speech, that the For- 
mer part of it is convincing, as to what the 

moderns haw profited by the rules of the an- 
cients; bul in the latter you are careful to 
Conceal how much they haw excelled them. 
We own all the helps we have from them, and 
want neither veneration nor gratitude, while 
We acknowledge, that to overcome- them we 
must make use of the advantages we haw 
received from them: but to these assistances 
we have joined our own industry; for, had we 
sat down with a dull imitation of them, we might 
then have lost somewhat of the old perfection, 
but never acquired any that was new. We 
draw not therefore after their lines, but those 
of nature; and having the life before us, be- 
sides the experience of all they knew, it is no 
wonder if we hit some airs and features which 
they have missed. 1 deny not what you urge 
oi arts and sciences, that they have flourished 
in some ages more than others; but your 
instance in philosophy makes for me: for if 
natural causes be more known now than in 
the time of Aristotle, because more studied, it 
follows, that poesy and other arts may, with 
the same pains, arrive still nearer to perfection; 
and, that granted, it will rest for you to prove, 
that they wrought more perfect images of human 
life, than we; which seeing in vour discourse 
you have avoided to make good, it shall now 
be my task to show you some part of their de- 



AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



T 5i 



fects, and some few excellencies of the moderns. 
And I think there is none among us can imagine 
I do it enviously, or with purpose to detract 
from them ; for what interest of fame or profit 
can the living lose by the reputation of the 
dead? On the other side, it is a great truth 
which Velleius Paterculus affirms: Audita vi- 
sis libcntius laudamus; et prcesentia invidia, 
prater ita admirationc prosequimur ; et his nos 
obrui, Mis instrui credimus: ' that praise or 
censure is certainly the most sincere, which 
unbribed posterity shall give us. 

Be pleased then, in the first place, to take 
notice, that the Greek poesy, which Crites has 
affirmed to have arrived to perfection in the 
reign of the old comedy, was so far from it, 
that the distinction of it into acts was not 
known to them; or if it were, it is yet so 
darkly delivered to us, that we cannot make 
it out. 

All we know of it is, from the singing of their 
chorus; and that too is so uncertain, that in 
some of their plays we have reason to conjec- 
ture they sung more than five times. Aristotle 
indeed divides the integral parts of a play into 
four. First, the Protasis, or entrance, which 
gives light only to the characters of the persons, 
and proceeds very little into any part of the 
action. Secondly, the Epitasis, or working up 
of the plot; where the play grows warmer, 
the design or action of it is drawing on, and you 
see something promising that it will come to 
pass. Thirdly, the Calastasis, called by the 
Romans, Status, the height and full growth of 
the play: we may call it properly the counter- 
turn, which destroys that expectation, embroils 
the action in new difficulties, and leaves you 
far distant from that hope in which it found 
you; as you may have observed in a violent 
stream, resisted by a narrow passage, — it 
runs round to an eddy, and carries back the 
waters with more swiftness than it brought 
them on. Lastly, the Catastrophe, which the 
Grecians called Averts, the French le denoue- 
ment, and we the discovery, or unravelling of 
the plot: there you see all things settling again 
upon their first foundations, and, the obstacles 
which hindered the design or action of the play 
once removed, it ends with that resemblance of 
truth and nature, that the audience are satis- 
fied with the conduct of it. Thus this great 

1 We praise things reported more willingly than 
those seen ; and things of to-day we follow with 
envy, those of yesterday with admiration, believing 
ourselves to be hindered by the former and helped 
by the latter. 



man delivered to us the image of a play; and 
I must confess it is so lively, that from thence 
much light has been derived to the forming it 
more perfectly into acts and scenes: but what 
poet first limited to five the number of the acts, 
I know not; only we see it so firmly established 
in the time of Horace, that he gives it for a 
rule in comedy, — Neu brevior quinto, neu sit 
productior actu. 1 So that you see the Grecians 
cannot be said to have consummated this art; 
writing rather by entrances, than by acts, and 
having rather a general indigested notion of 
a play, than knowing how, and where to be- 
stow the particular graces of it. 

But since the Spaniards at this day allow 
but three acts, which they call Jornadas, to a 
play, and the Italians in many of theirs follow 
them, when I condemn the ancients, I declare 
it is not altogether because they have not five 
acts to every play, but because they have not 
confined themselves to one certain number: 
it is building an house without a model; and 
when they succeeded in such undertakings, 
they ought to have sacrificed to Fortune, not 
to the Muses. 

Next, for the plot, which Aristotle called to 
fjivdos, and often rutv Trpayfidrwv avvOtms, and 
from him the Romans Fabula, it has already 
been judiciously observed by a late writer, that 
in their tragedies it was only some tale derived 
from Thebes or Troy, or at least something that 
happened in those two ages; which was worn 
so thread-bare by the pens of all the epic poets, 
and even by tradition itself of the talkative 
Greeklings, (as Ben Jonson calls them,) that 
before it came upon the stage, it was already 
known to all the audience; and the people, so 
soon as ever they heard the name of GEdipus, 
knew as well as the poet, that he had killed 
his father by a mistake, and committed incest 
with his mother, before the play; that they 
were now to hear of a great plague, an oracle, 
and the ghost of Laius: so that they sate with 
a yawning kind of expectation, till he was to 
come with his eyes pulled out, and speak a 
hundred or more verses in a tragic tone, in com- 
plaint of his misfortunes. But one (Edipus, 
Hercules, or Medea, had been tolerable; poor 
people, they escaped not so good cheap; they 
had still the chapon bouille 2 set before them, 
till their appetites were cloyed with the same 
dish, and, the novelty being gone, the pleasure 
vanished; so that one main end of Dramatic 



1 Let it be neither shorter nor longer than five acts. 
2 boiled chicken 



152 



JOHN DRYDEN 



Poesy in its definition, which was to cause de- 
light, was of consequence destroyed. 

In their comedies, the Romans generally 
borrowed their plots from the Greek poets; 
and theirs was commonly a little girl stolen 
or wandered from her parents, brought back 
unknown to the city, there got with child by 
some lewd young fellow, who, by the help of 
his servant, cheats his father; and when her 
time comes to cry Juno Lucina, fer opcm, 1 
one or other sees a little box or cabinet which 
was carried away with her, and so discovers 
her to her friends, if some god do not prevent it, 
by coming down in a machine, and taking the 
thanks of it to himself. 

By the plot you may guess much of the char- 
acters of the persons. An old father, who 
would willingly, before he dies, see his son well 
married; his debauched son, kind in his nature 
to his mistress, but miserably in want of money; 
a servant or slave, who has so much wit to 
strike in with him, and help to dupe his father; 
a braggadocio captain, a parasite, and a lady 
of pleasure. 

As for the poor honest maid, on whom the 
story is built, and who ought to be one of the 
principal actors in the play, she is commonly 
a mute in it ; she has the breeding of the old 
Elizabeth way, which was for maids to be seen, 
and not to be heard ; and it is enough you know 
she is willing to be married, when the fifth act 
requires it. 

These are plots built after the Italian mode 
of houses, — you see through them all at once: 
the characters are indeed the imitations of na- 
ture, but so narrow, as if they had imitated 
only an eye or an hand, and did not dare to 
venture on the lines of a face, or the proportion 
of a body. 

But in how straight a compass soever they 
have bounded their plots and characters, we 
will pass it by, if they have regularly pursued 
them, and perfectly observed those three uni- 
ties of time, place, and action ; the knowledge 
of which you say is derived to us from them. 
But, in the first place, give me leave to tell you, 
that the unity of place, however it might be 
practised by them, was never any of their rules: 
we neither find it in Aristotle, Horace, or any 
who have written of it, till in our age the French 
poets first made it a precept of the stage. The 
unity of time, even Terence himself, who was 
the best and most regular of them, has neg- 
lected: his " Heautontimorumenos" or Self- 



punisher, takes up visibly two days, says 
Scaliger; the two first acts concluding the first 
day, the three last the day ensuing; and 
Euripides, in tying himself to one day, has 
committed an absurdity never to be forgiven 
him; for in one of his tragedies he has made 
Theseus go from Athens to Thebes, which was 
about forty English miles, under the walls of 
it to give battle, and appear victorious in the 
next act; and yet, from the time of his depart- 
ure to the return of the Nuntius, who gives 
the relation of his victory, /Ethra and the 
Chorus have but thirty-six verses; which is 
not for every mile a verse. 

The like error is as evident in Terence his 
"Eunuch," when Laches, the old man, enters 
by mistake into the house of Thais; where, 
betwixt his exit, and the entrance of Pythias, 
who comes to give ample relation of the dis- 
orders he has raised within, Parmeno, who was 
left upon the stage, has not above five lines to 
speak. Cest bien employer un temps si court, 1 
says the French poet, who furnished me with 
one of the observations: and almost all their 
tragedies will afford us examples of the like 
nature. 

It is true, they have kept the continuity, or, 
as you called it, liaison des Scenes, somewhat 
better : two do not perpetually come in together, 
talk, and go out together; and other two suc- 
ceed them, and do the same throughout the 
act, which the English call by the name of single 
scenes ; but the reason is, because .they have 
seldom above two or three scenes, properly 
so called, in every act; for it is to be accounted 
a new scene, not only every time the stage is 
empty, but every person who enters, though to 
others, makes it so; because he introduces a 
new business. Now the plots of their plays 
being narrow, and the persons few, one of their 
acts was written in a less compass than one of 
our well-wrought scenes ; and yet they are often 
deficient even in this. To go no farther than 
Terence, you find in the "Eunuch," Antipho 
entering single in the midst of the third act, 
after Chremes and Pythias were gone off: in 
the same play you have likewise Dorias begin- 
ning the fourth act alone; and after she has 
made a relation of what was done at the Soldier's 
entertainment, (which by the way was very 
inartificial, because she was presumed to speak 
directly to the audience, and to acquaint them 
with what was necessary to be known, but 
yet should have been so contrived by the poet, 



1 Help me, O goddess of childbearing ! 



1 This is making good use of so short a time. 



AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



J 53 



as to have been told by persons of the drama 
to one another, and so by them to have come 
to the knowledge of the people,) she quits the 
stage, and Phaedria enters next, alone likewise : 
he also gives you an account of himself, and of 
his returning from the country, in monologue; 
to which unnatural way of narration Terence 
is subject in all his plays. In his "Adelphi, 
or Brothers," Syrus and Demea enter after the 
scene was broken by the departure of Sostrata, 
Geta, and Canthara; and indeed you can 
scarce look into any of his comedies, where you 
will not presently discover the same interruption. 
But as they have failed both in laying of their 
plots, and in the management, swerving from 
the rules of their own art, by misrepresenting 
nature to us, in which they have ill satisfied one 
intention of a play, which was delight; so in 
the instructive part they have erred worse: 
instead of punishing vice, and rewarding virtue, 
they have often shown a prosperous wickedness, 
and an unhappy piety : they have set before us 
a bloody image of revenge in Medea, and given 
her dragons to convey her safe from punish- 
ment. A Priam and Astyanax murdered, 
and Cassandra ravished, and the lust and 
murder ending in the victory of him who acted 
them. In short, there is no indecorum in any 
of our modern plays, which, if I would excuse, 
I could not shadow with some authority from 
the ancients. 

But, to return from whence I have digressed, 
to the consideration of the ancients' writing, 
and their wit; of which, by this time, you will 
grant us in some measure to be fit judges. 
Though I see many excellent thoughts in 
Seneca, yet he of them who had a genius most 
proper for the stage, was Ovid ; he had a way 
of writing so fit to stir up a pleasing admiration 
and concernment, which are the objects of a 
tragedy, and to show the various movements 
of a soul combating betwixt two different pas- 
sions, that had he lived in our age, or in his own 
could have writ with our advantages, no man 
but must have yielded to him; and therefore 
I am confident the "Medea" is none of his; 
for though I esteem it for the gravity and sen- 
tentiousness of it, which he himself concludes 
to be suitable to a tragedy, — Omne genus 
scripti gravitate Tragcedia vincit, — yet it 
moves not my soul enough to judge that he, 
who in the epic way wrote things so near the 
drama, as the story of Myrrha, of Caunus and 
Biblis, and the rest, should stir up no more 
concernment where he most endeavoured it. 



The master-piece of Seneca I hold to be that 
scene in the "Troades," where Ulysses is seek- 
ing for Astyanax to kill him: there you see 
the tenderness of a mother, so represented in 
Andromache, that it raises compassion to a high 
degree in the reader, and bears the nearest 
resemblance of anything in the tragedies of 
the ancients, to the excellent scenes of passion 
in Shakespeare, or in Fletcher. — For love- 
scenes you will find few among them; their 
tragic poets dealt not with that soft passion, 
but with lust, cruelty, revenge, ambition, and 
those bloody actions they produced ; which were 
more capable of raising horror than compassion 
in an audience : leaving love untouched, whose 
gentleness would have tempered them, which 
is the most frequent of all the passions, and 
which, being the private concernment of every 
person, is soothed by viewing its own image in 
a public entertainment. 

Among their comedies, we find a scene or 
two of tenderness, and that where you would 
least expect it, in Plautus; but to speak gen- 
erally, their lovers say little, when they see 
each other, but anima mea, vita mea; £co?) kol 
i/^x^, as the women in Juvenal's time used to 
cry out in the fury of their kindness. Any 
sudden gust of passion (as an ecstasy of love 
in an unexpected meeting) cannot better be 
expressed than in a word, and a sigh, breaking 
one another. Nature is dumb on such occa- 
sions; and to make her speak, would be to 
represent her unlike herself. But there are 
a thousand other concernments of lovers, as 
jealousies, complaints, contrivances, and the 
like, where not to open their minds at large 
to each other, were to be wanting to their own 
love, and to the expectation of the audience; 
who watch the movements of their minds, as 
much as the changes of their fortunes. For 
the imagining of the first is properly the work 
of a poet; the latter he borrows from the 
historian. 

Eugenius was proceeding in that part of his 
discourse, when Crites interrupted him. I see, 
said he, Eugenius and I are never like to have 
this question decided betwixt us; for he main- 
tains, the moderns have acquired a new per- 
fection in writing, I can only grant they have 
altered the mode of it. Homer described his 
heroes men of great appetites, lovers of beef 
broiled upon the coals, and good fellows; con- 
trary to the practice of the French romances, 
whose heroes neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, 
for love. Virgil makes /Eneas a bold avower 
of his own virtues: 



154 



JOHN DRYDEN 



Sum pius JEneas fama super athera notus; 1 

which, in the civility of our poets, is the char- 
acter of a fanfaron, or Hector : for with us the 
knight takes occasion to walk out, or sleep, 
to avoid the vanity of telling his own story, 
which the trusty squire is ever to perform for 
him. So in their love-scenes, of which Euge- 
nius spoke last, the ancients were more hearty, 
we more talkative : they writ love as it was then 
the mode to make it; and I will grant this 
much to Eugenius, that perhaps one of their 
poets, had he lived in our age, 

Siforet hoc nostrum fato delapsus in avum, 

as Horace says of Lucilius, he had altered 
many things; not that they were not natural 
before, but that he might accommodate himself 
to the age in which he lived. Yet in the mean- 
time we are not to conclude anything rashly 
against those great men, but preserve to them 
the dignity of masters, and give that honour 
to their memories, — quos Libitina sacravit, 2 
— part of which we expect may be paid to us 
in future times. 

This moderation of Crites, as it was pleasing 
to all the company, so it put an end to that dis- 
pute; which Eugenius, who seemed to have 
the better of the argument, would urge no 
farther. But Lisideius, after he had acknow- 
ledged himself of Eugenius his opinion concern- 
ing the ancients, yet told him, he had forborne, 
till his discourse were ended, to ask him, why 
he preferred the English plays above those of 
other nations? and whether we ought not to 
submit our stage to the- exactness of our next 
neighbours? 

Though, said Eugenius, I am at all times 
ready to defend the honour of my country 
against the French, and to maintain, we are as 
well able to vanquish them with our pens, as 
our ancestors have been with their swords; 
yet, if you please, added he, looking upon Ne- 
ander, I will commit this cause to my friend's 
management; his opinion of our plays is the 
same with mine : and besides, there is no reason, 
that Crites and I, who have now left the stage, 
should reenter so suddenly upon it; which is 
against the laws of comedy. 

If the question had been stated, replied 
Lisideius, who had writ best, the French or 
English, forty years ago, I should have been 
of your opinion, and adjudged the honour to 
our own nation ; but since that time, (said he, 

1 I am pious ^neas, known by fame beyond the sky. 
2 Whom Death has made sacred. 



turning towards Neander,) we have been so 
long together bad Englishmen, that we had not 
leisure to be good poets. Beaumont, Fletcher, 
and Jonson, (who were only capable of bringing 
us to that degree of perfection which we have,) 
were just then leaving the world; as if in an 
age of so much horror, wit, and those milder 
studies of humanity, had no farther business 
among us. But the muses, who ever follow 
peace, went to plant in another country: it 
was then that the great Cardinal of Richelieu 
began to take them into his protection; and 
that, by his encouragement, Corneille, and some 
other Frenchmen, reformed their theatre, which 
before was as much below ours, as it now sur- 
passes it and the rest of Europe. But because 
Crites, in his discourse for the ancients, has 
prevented me, by observing many rules of the 
stage, which the moderns have borrowed from 
them, I shall only, in short, demand of you, 
whether you are not convinced that of all 
nations the French have observed them? In 
the unity of time you find them so scrupulous, 
that it yet remains a dispute among their poets, 
whether the artificial day of twelve hours, more 
or less, be not meant by Aristotle, rather than 
the natural one of twenty-four; and conse- 
quently, whether all plays ought not to be 
reduced into that compass. This I can testify, 
that in all their dramas writ within these last 
twenty years and upwards, I have not observed 
any that have extended the time to thirty 
hours. In the unity of place they -are full as 
scrupulous; for many of their critics limit it 
to that very spot of ground where the play is 
supposed to begin; none of them exceed the 
compass of the same town or city. 

The unity of action in all their plays is yet 
more conspicuous; for they do not burden them 
with under-plots, as the English do: which 
is the reason why many scenes of our tragi- 
comedies carry on a design that is nothing of 
kin to the main plot; and that we see two dis- 
tinct webs in a play, like those in ill-wrought 
stuffs; and two actions, that is, two plays, 
carried on together, to the confounding of the 
audience; who, before they are warm in their 
concernments for one part, are diverted to 
another; and by that means espouse the interest 
of neither. From hence likewise it arises, that 
the one half of our actors are not known to the 
other. They keep their distances, as if they 
were Montagues and Capulets, and seldom 
begin an acquaintance till the last scene of the 
fifth act, when they are all to meet upon the 
stage. There is no theatre in the world has 



AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



155 



anything so absurd as the English tragi- 
comedy; it is a drama of our own invention, 
and the fashion of it is enough to proclaim it 
so; here a course of mirth, there another of 
sadness and passion, and a third of honour 
and a duel: thus, in two hours and a half we 
run through all the fits of Bedlam. The French 
affords you as much variety on the same day, 
but they do it not so unseasonably, or mal a 
propos, as we: our poets present you the play 
and the farce together; and our stages still 
retain somewhat of the original civility of the 
Red Bull: 

Atque ursum el pugiles media inter carmina poscunt. 1 

The end of tragedies or serious plays, says 
Aristotle, is to beget admiration, compassion, 
or concernment; but are not mirth and com- 
passion things incompatible? and is it not evi- 
dent, that the poet must of necessity destroy 
the former by intermingling of the latter? that 
is, he must ruin the sole end and object of his 
tragedy, to introduce somewhat that is forced 
into it, and is not of the body of it. Would 
you not think that physician mad, who, having 
prescribed a purge, should immediately order 
you to take restringents? 

But to leave our plays, and return to theirs. 
I have noted one great advantage they have 
had in the plotting of their tragedies; that is, 
they are always grounded upon some known 
history: according to that of Horace, Ex nolo 
fictum carmen sequar; 2 and in that they have 
so imitated the ancients, that they have sur- 
passed them. For the ancients, as was observed 
before, took for the foundation of their plays 
some poetical fiction, such as under that con- 
sideration could move but little concernment 
in the audience, because they already knew 
the event of it. But the French goes farther: 

Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet, 
Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum. 3 

He so interweaves truth with probable fiction, 
that he puts a pleasing fallacy upon us, mends 
the intrigues of fate, and dispenses with the 
severity of history, to reward that virtue which 
has been rendered to us there unfortunate. 
Sometimes the story has left the success so 

1 And in the midst of the poems they call for the 
bears and the boxers. 2 On a known fact I base a 
feigned song. 3 He so mixes false with true that the 
middle may not disagree with the beginning nor the 
end with the middle. 



doubtful, that the writer is free, by the privi- 
lege of a poet, to take that which of two or more 
relations will best suit with his design: as for 
example, in the death of Cyrus, whom Justin 
and some others report to have perished in the 
Cythian war, but Xenophon affirms to have 
died in his bed of extreme old age. Nay 
more, when the event is past dispute, even then 
we are willing to be deceived, and the poet, if 
he contrives it with appearance of truth, has 
all the audience of his party; at least during 
the time his play is acting: so naturally we are 
kind to virtue, when our own interest is not in 
question, that we take it up as the general 
concernment of mankind. On the other side, 
if you consider the historical plays of Shake- 
speare, they are rather so many chronicles of 
kings, or the business many times of thirty or 
forty years, cramped into a representation of 
two hours and a half; which is not to imitate 
or paint nature, but rather to draw her in 
miniature, to take her in little ; to look upon her 
through the wrong end of a perspective, and 
receive her images not only much less, but 
infinitely more imperfect than the life: this, 
instead of making a play delightful, renders it 
ridiculous: 

Quodcumque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi. 1 

For the spirit of man cannot be satisfied but 
with truth, or at least verisimility ; and a poem 
is to contain, if not to. erv/xa, yet Itvixoktlv ofxota, 
as one of the Greek poets has expressed it. 

Another thing in which the French differ 
from us and from the Spaniards, is, that they 
do not embarrass, or cumber themselves with 
too much plot ; they only represent so much of 
a story as will constitute one whole and great 
action sufficient for a play: we, who undertake 
more, do but multiply adventures; which, not 
being produced from one another, as effects 
from causes, but barely following, constitute 
many actions in the drama, and consequently 
make it many plays. 

But by pursuing closely one argument, 
which is not cloyed with many turns, the French 
have gained more liberty for verse, in which 
they write: they have leisure to dwell on a 
subject which deserves it ; and to represent the 
passions, (which we have acknowledged to be 
the poet's work,) without being hurried from 
one thing to another, as we are in the plays of 
Calderon, which we have seen lately upon our 
theatres, under the name of Spanish plots. I 

1 Whatever you show me thus, I disbelieve and hate. 



156 



JOHN DRYDEN 



have taken notice but of one tragedy of ours, 
whose plot has that uniformity and unity of 
design in it, which I have commended in the 
French; and that is "Rollo," or rather, under 
the name of Rollo, the story of Bassianus and 
Geta in Herodian: there indeed the plot is 
neither Large nor intricate, but just enough to 
fill the minds of the audience, not to cloy them. 
Besides, you see it founded upon the truth of 
history, — only the time of the action is not 
reduceable to the strictness of the rules; and 
you see in some places a little farce mingled, 
which is below the dignity of the other parts; 
and in this all our poets are extremely peccant: 
even Ben Jonson himself, in "Sejanus" and 
"Catiline," has given us this olio of a play, 
this unnatural mixture of comedy and tragedy, 
which to me sounds just as ridiculously as the 
history of David with the merry humours of 
Goliah. In "Sejanus" you may take notice 
of the scene betwixt Livia and the physician, 
which is a pleasant satire upon the artificial 
helps of beauty: in "Catiline" you may see 
the parliament of women; the little envies of 
them to one another; and all that passes 
betwixt Curio and l'ulvia: scenes admirable in 
their kind, but of an ill mingle with the rest. 

Hut 1 return again to the French writers, who, 
as I have said, do not burden themselves too 
much with plot, which has been reproached to 
them by an ingenious person of our nation as 
a fault ; for he says, they commonly make but 
one person considerable in a play; they dwell 
on him, and his concernments, while the rest 
of the persons are only subservient to set him 
off. If he intends this by it, — that there is 
one person in the play who is of greater dignity 
than the rest, he must tax, not only theirs, but 
those of the ancients, and, which he would be 
loth to do, the best of ours; for it is impossible 
but that one person must be more conspicuous 
in it than any other, and consequently the great- 
est share in the action must devolve on him. 
We see it so in the management of all affairs; 
even in the most equal aristocracy, the balance 
cannot be so justly poised, but some one will 
be superior to the rest, either in parts, fortune, 
interest, or the consideration of some glorious 
exploit ; which will reduce the greatest part of 
business into his hands. 

Hut, if he would have us to imagine, that in 
exalting one character the rest of them are 
neglected, and that all of them have not some 
share or other in the action of the play, I desire 
him to produce any of Corneille's tragedies, 
wherein every j>erson (like so many servants 



in a well-governed family) has not some em- 
ployment, and who is not necessary to the car- 
rying on of the plot, or at least to your under- 
standing it. 

There are indeed some protatic persons in 
the ancients, whom they make use of in their 
plays, either to hear, or give the relation: but 
the French avoid this with great address, 
making their narrations only to, or by such, 
who are some way interested in the main design. 
And now I am speaking of relations, I cannot 
take a litter opportunity to add this in favour 
of the French, that they often use them with 
better judgment and more d propos than' the 
English do. Not that I commend narrations 
in general, — but there are two sorts of them ; 
one, of those things which are antecedent to 
the play, and are related to make the conduct 
of it more clear to us ; but it is a fault to choose 
such subjects for the stage as will force us on 
that rock, because we see they are seldom lis- 
tened to by the audience, ami that is many times 
the ruin of the play; for, being once let pass 
without attention, the audience can never 
recover themselves to understand the plot; 
and indeed it is somewhat unreasonable, that 
they should be put to so much trouble, as, that 
to comprehend what passes in their sight, they 
must have recourse to what was done, perhaps, 
ten or twenty years ago. 

But there is another sort of relations, that is, 
of things happening in the action of the play, 
and supposed to be done behind. the scenes; 
and this is many times both convenient and 
beautiful: for, by it the French avoid the 
tumult to which we are subject in England, 
by representing duels, battles, and the like; 
which renders our stage too like the theatres 
where they fight prizes. For what is more 
ridiculous than to represent an army with a 
drum ami five men behind it; all which, the 
hero of the other side is to drive in before him? 
or to see a duel fought, and one slain with two 
or three thrusts of the foils, which we know are 
so blunted, that we might give a man an hour 
to kill another in good earnest with them? 

I have observed, that in all our tragedies the 
audience cannot forbear laughing when the 
actors are to die; it is the most comic part 
of the whole play. All passions may be lively 
represented on the stage, if to the well-writing 
of them the actor supplies a good commanded 
voice, and limbs that move easily, and without 
stiffness; but there are many actions which 
can never be imitated to a just height: dying 
especially is a thing which none but a Roman 



AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



157 



gladiator could naturally perform on the stage, 
when he did not imitate, or represent, but do 
it; and therefore it is better to omit the repre- 
sentation of it. 

The words of a good writer, which describe 
it lively, will make a deeper impression of belief 
in us, than all the actor can insinuate into us, 
when he seems to fall dead before us; as a 
poet in the description of a beautiful garden, 
or a meadow, will please our imagination more 
than the place itself can please our sight. When 
we see death represented, we are convinced 
it is but fiction ; but when we hear it related, 
our eyes (the strongest witnesses) are wanting, 
which might have undeceived us; and we are 
all willing to favour the slight when the poet 
does not too grossly impose on us. They, 
therefore, who imagine these relations would 
make no concernment in the audience, are 
deceived, by confounding them with the other, 
which are of things antecedent to the play: 
those are made often in cold blood, as I may 
say, to the audience; but these are warmed 
with our concernments, which were before 
awakened in the play. What the philosophers 
say of motion, that, when it is once begun, it 
continues of itself, and will do so to eternity, 
without some stop put to it, is clearly true on 
this occasion: the soul, being already moved 
with the characters and fortunes of those im- 
aginary persons, continues going of its own 
accord ; and we are no more weary to hear what 
becomes of them when they are not on the stage, 
than we are to listen to the news of an absent 
mistress. But it is objected, that if one part 
of the play may be related, then why not all? 
I answer, some parts of the action are more fit 
to be represented, some to be related. Cor- 
neille says judiciously, that the poet is not 
obliged to expose to view all particular actions 
which conduce to the principal: he ought to 
select such of them to be seen, which will 
appear with the greatest beauty, either by the 
magnificence of the show, or the vehemence 
of 1 missions which they produce, or some other 
charm which they have in them, and let the 
rest arrive to the audience by narration. It 
is a great mistake in us to believe the French 
present no part of the action on the stage: 
every alteration or crossing of a design, every 
new-sprung passion, and turn of it, is a part of 
the action, and much the noblest, except we 
conceive nothing to be action till the players 
come to blows; as if the painting of the hero's 
mind were not more properly the poet's work, 
than the strength of his body. 



But I find I have been too long in this dis- 
course, since the French have many other 
excellencies not common to us; as that you 
never see any of their plays end with a con- 
version, or simple change of will, which is 
the ordinary way which our poets use to end 
theirs. It shows little art in the conclusion of 
a dramatic poem, when they who have hindered 
the felicity during the four acts, desist from it 
in the fifth, without some powerful cause to 
take them off their design; and though I deny 
not but such reasons may be found, yet it is a 
path that is cautiously to be trod, and the poet 
is to be sure he convinces the audience, that the 
motive is strong enough. As for example, the 
conversion of the Usurer in "The Scornful 
Lady," seems to me a little forced; for, being 
an usurer, which implies a lover of money to 
the highest degree of covetousness, (and such 
the poet has represented him,) the account he 
gives for the sudden change is, that he has 
been duped by the wild young fellow; which in 
reason might render him more wary another 
time, and make him punish himself with harder 
fare and coarser clothes to get up again what 
he had lost : but that he should look on it as a 
judgment, and so repent, we may expect to 
hear in a sermon, but I should never endure it 
in a play. 

I pass by this; neither will I insist on the 
care they take, that no person after his first 
entrance shall ever appear, but the business 
which brings him upon the stage shall be 
evident; which rule, if observed, must needs 
render all the events in the play more natural; 
for there you see the probability of every acci- 
dent, in the cause that produced it; and that 
which appears chance in the play, will seem 
so reasonable to you, that you will there find 
it almost necessary: so that in the exit of the 
actor you have a clear account of his purpose 
and design in the next entrance; (though, if 
the scene be well wrought, the event will com- 
monly deceive you;) for there is nothing so 
absurd, says Corneille, as for an actor to leave 
the stage, only because he has no more to say. 

I should now speak of the beauty of their 
rhyme, and the just reason I have to prefer 
that way of writing in tragedies before ours in 
blank-verse; but because it is partly received 
by us, and therefore not altogether peculiar to 
them, I will say no more of it in relation to 
their plays. For our own, I doubt not but it 
will exceedingly beautify them ; and I can see 
but one reason why it should not generally 



158 



JOHN DRYDEN 



obtain, that is, because our poets write so 
ill in it. This indeed may prove a more 
prevailing argument than all others which 
are used to destroy it, and therefore I am 
only troubled when great and judicious poets, 
and those who are acknowledged such, have 
writ or spoke against it : as for others, 
they are to be answered by that one sen- 
tence of an ancient author: Sed ut primo 
ad consequcndos cos quos prions ducimus, 
accendimur, ita ubi ant prackriri, out aequari 
eos posse desperavimus, stitdium cum spe 
sencscit: quod, scilicet, assequi non potest, 
scqui desinit; — praeteritoque eo in quo emi- 
nere non possumus, aliquid in quo nitamur, 
conquirimusJ 

Lisideius concluded in this manner; and 
Neander, after a little pause, thus answered 
him: 

I shall grant Lisideius, without much dis- 
pute, a great part of what he has urged against 
us; for I acknowledge, that the French con- 
trive their plots more regularly, and observe 
the laws of comedy, and decorum of the stage, 
(to speak generally,) with more exactness than 
the English. Farther, I deny not but he has 
taxed us justly in some irregularities of ours, 
which he has mentioned; yet, after all, I am 
of opinion, that neither our faults, nor their 
virtues, are considerable enough to place them 
above us. 

For the lively imitation of nature being in the 
definition of a play, those which best fulfil that 
law, ought to be esteemed superior to the others. 
'Tis true, those beauties of the French poesy 
are such as will raise perfection higher where 
it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is 
not: they are indeed the beauties of a statue, 
but not of a man, because not animated with 
the soul of poesy, which is imitation of humour 
and passions: and this Lisideius himself, or 
any other, however biassed to their party, can- 
not but acknowledge, if he will either compare 
the humours of our comedies, or the characters 
of our serious plays, with theirs. He who will 
look upon theirs which have been written till 
these last ten years, or thereabouts, will find 
it an hard matter to pick out two or three pass- 
able humours amongst them. Corneille him- 

1 But as at first we are incited to follow those whom 
we regard as superior, so when we have despaired 
of being able either to surpass or to equal them, zeal 
weakens as hope does: what, forsooth, cannot be 
overtaken is not pursued; — and abandoning that in 
which we cannot excel, we seek something in which 
we may contend. 



self, their arch-poet, what has he produced 
except "The Liar," and you know how it was 
cried up in France ; but when it came upon the 
English stage, though well translated, and that 
part of Dorant acted to so much advantage 
as I am confident it never received in its own 
country, the most favourable to it would not 
put it in competition with many of Fletcher's 
or Ben Jonson's. In the rest of Corneille's 
comedies you have little humour; he tells you 
himself, his way is, first to show two lovers in 
good intelligence with each other; in the work- 
ing up of the play, to embroil them by some 
mistake, and in the latter end to clear it, and 
reconcile them. 

But of late years Moliere, the younger Cor- 
neille, Quinault, and some others, have been 
imitating afar off the quick turns and graces 
of the English stage. They have mixed their 
serious plays with mirth, like our tragi-come- 
dies, since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, 
which Lisideius, and many others, not observ- 
ing, have commended that in them for a virtue, 
which they themselves no longer practise. 
Most of their new plays are, like some of ours, 
derived from the Spanish novels. There is 
scarce one of them without a veil, and a trusty 
Diego, who drolls much after the rate of the 
"Adventures." But their humours, if I may 
grace them with that name, are so thin sown, 
that never above one of them comes up in any 
play. I dare take upon me to find more 
variety of them in some one play .of Ben Jon- 
son's, than in all theirs together : as he who has 
seen the "Alchemist," "The Silent Woman," 
or "Bartholomew Fair," cannot but acknow- 
ledge with me. 

I grant the French have performed what 
was possible on the ground-work of the Span- 
ish plays; what was pleasant before, they have 
made regular: but there is not above one good 
play to be writ on all those plots; they are too 
much alike to please often, which we need not 
the experience of our own stage to justify. 
As for their new way of mingling mirth with 
serious plot, I do not, with Lisideius, condemn 
the thing, though I cannot approve their man- 
ner of doing it. He tells us, we cannot so speed- 
ily recollect ourselves after a scene of great pas- 
sion and concernment, as to pass to another 
of mirth and humour, and to enjoy it with 
any relish : but why should he imagine the soul 
of man more heavy than his senses? Does 
not the eve pass from an unpleasant object to a 
pleasant, in a much shorter time than is required 
to this ? and does not the unpleasantness of the 



AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



159 



first commend the beauty of the latter? The 
old rule of logic might have convinced him, 
that contraries, when placed near, set off each 
other. A continued gravity keeps the spirit 
too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, 
as we bait in a journey, that we may go on with 
greater ease. A scene of mirth, mixed with 
tragedy, has the same effect upon us which 
our music has betwixt the acts; which we find 
a relief to us from the best plots and language 
of the stage, if the discourses have been long. 
I must therefore have stronger arguments, ere 
I am convinced that compassion and mirth in 
the same subject destroy each other; and in 
the meantime, cannot but conclude, to the 
honour of our nation, that we have invented, 
increased, and perfected, a more pleasant way 
of writing for the stage, than was ever known 
to the ancients or moderns of any nation, which 
is tragi-comedy. 

And this leads me to wonder why Lisideius 
and many others should cry up the barrenness 
of the French plots, above the variety and 
copiousness of the English. Their plots are sin- 
gle, they carry on one design, which is pushed 
forward by all the actors, every scene in the 
play contributing and moving towards it. 
Our plays, besides the main design, have under- 
plots, or by-concernments, of less considerable 
persons and intrigues, which are carried on 
with the motion of the main plot: as they say 
the orb of the fixed stars, and those of the 
planets, though they have motions of their own, 
are whirled about by the motion of the primum 
mobile, in which they are contained. That 
similitude expresses much of the English stage ; 
for if contrary motions may be found in nature 
to agree ; if a planet can go east and west at 
the same time ; — one way by virtue of his own 
motion, the other by the force of the first 
mover; — it will not be difficult to imagine 
how the under-plot, which is only different, not 
contrary to the great design, may naturally be 
conducted along with it. 

Eugenius has already shown us, from the 
confession of the French poets, that the 
unity of action is sufficiently preserved, if 
all the imperfect actions of the play are 
conducing to the main design; but when 
those petty intrigues of a play are so ill 
ordered, that they have no coherence with 
the other, I must grant that Lisideius has 
reason to tax that want of due connec- 
tion; for coordination in a play is as dan- 
gerous and unnatural as in a state. In the 
meantime he must acknowledge, our variety, 



if well ordered, will afford a greater pleasure 
to the audience. 

As for his other argument, that by pursuing 
one single theme they gain an advantage to 
express and work up the passions, I wish any 
example he could bring from them would make 
it good; for I confess their verses are to me the 
coldest I have ever read. Neither, indeed, is 
it possible for them, in the way they take, so 
to express passion, as that the effects of it 
should appear in the concernment of an 
audience, their speeches being so many decla- 
mations, which tire us with the length ; so that 
instead of persuading us to grieve for their 
imaginary heroes, we are concerned for our 
own trouble, as we are in tedious visits of bad 
company; we are in pain till they are gone. 
When the French stage came to be reformed 
by Cardinal Richelieu, those long harangues 
were introduced, to comply with the gravity 
of a churchman. Look upon the "Cinna" 
and the "Pompey"; they are not so properly 
to be called plays, as long discourses of reason 
of state; and "Polieucte" in matters of religion 
is as solemn as the long stops upon our organs. 
Since that time it is grown into a custom, and 
their actors speak by the hour-glass, like our 
parsons; nay, they account it the grace of 
their parts, and think themselves disparaged 
by the poet, if they may not twice or thrice in 
a play entertain the audience with a speech 
of an hundred lines. I deny not but this may 
suit well enough with the French; for as we, 
who are a more sullen people, come to be 
diverted at our plays, so they, who are of an 
airy and gay temper, come thither to make 
themselves more serious: and this I conceive 
to be one reason, why comedies are more pleas- 
ing to us, and tragedies to them. But to speak 
generally: it cannot be denied, that short 
speeches and replies are more apt to move the 
passions, and beget concernment in us, than 
the other; for it is unnatural for any one, in 
a gust of passion, to speak long together; or 
for another, in the same condition, to suffer 
him without interruption. Grief and passion 
are like floods raised in little brooks by a sudden 
rain ; they are quickly up, and if the concern- 
ment be poured unexpectedly in upon us, it 
overflows us: But a long sober shower gives 
them leisure to run out as they came in, without 
troubling the ordinary current. As for comedy, 
repartee is one of its chiefest graces ; the great- 
est pleasure of the audience is a chace of wit, 
kept up on both sides, and swiftly managed. 
And this our forefathers, if not we, have had 



t6o \^\w DRYDEN 

in Fletcher's plays, to .1 much hlghei degree of on the Incomparable Shakespeare for the same 

perfection, than the French poets can reason fault, To conclude on this subject of relations, 

abl) hopt to reach ii we are to be blamed foi showing too much 

* # * \ x \ x oi the action, the French are as faulty for <lis 

Bui i" leave thli . and pass to the lattei pari covering too little oi ll ; .1 mean betwixl both 

ol Lisideius's discourse, which concerns rels should be observed bj every judicious writer, 

tions, 1 must acknowledge with him, that 1 In- so as the audience may neitnei be left unsatis 

French have reai to hide that pari oi the Red by not seeing what is beautiful, or shocked 

action which would occasion too much tumult by beholding what la either Incredible >>r un« 

on the stage, and to choose rathet to have ii decent. 

made Known by narration i>> the audience E hope I have already proved in this discourse, 

Farther, 1 think ii ver) convenient, Foi the that though we are not altogether so punctual 

reasons he lias given, thai all Incredible actions as the French, In observing the lawsoi comedy, 

were removed; but, whethei custom has so ye1 put errors are so few, and little, and those 

Insinuated Itseli Into out countrymen 01 nature things wherein we excel them so considerable, 

has so formed them to fierceness, 1 Know nol ; thai we ought oi right to be preferred before 

luii they will scarceh Buffet combats and othet them Bui whal will Lisideius say, 11 they 

objects of horror to be taken from them \n<l, themselves acknowledge they are too strictly 

Indeed, the Indecenc) oi tumults Is all which bounded by those laws, foi breaking which 

can be objected again 1 fighting foi whj may he has blamed the English? [ will allege Cot 

nol "in Imagination as well suffei Itseli to be neille's words, as 1 find them in the end oi his 

deluded with the probability oi It, as with Discourse of the three Unities Utstfacihaux 

any other thing In the plaj ' Foi my part, speculates rf'«<n tevens, et( "ii Is eas) for 

1 can with as greal ease persuade myself, thai speculative persons to judge severely; bul If 

the blows an given In good earnest, as l can, they would produce to public view ten or twelve 

thai the) who strike them are kings 01 princes, pieces ol this nature, the) would perhaps jive 

or those persons which they represent For more latitude to the rules than l have done, 

objects oi Incredibility, 1 would be satisfied when, by experience, they had known how 

from Lisideius, whetnci we have an) so re much we are limited and constrained bj them, 

I novel from .ill appearance ol truth, as are those and how man} beauties oi the stage they ban 
of Corneille's " Vudromcde": a play which has Ished from it " ro Illustrate •* little whal he 
been frequented the mosl oi any he has writ has said; b) theii servile observations oi the 

II the Perseus, or the son of an heathen god, unities of time and place, and integrity of scenes, 
the Pegasus, and the Monster, were not capable the) have brought on themselves that dearth 
to choke ■> strong belief, lei him blame anj oi plot, and narrowness of imagination, which 
representation of ours hereaftei rhose indeed may be observed in all theii plays How many 
were objects oi delight; yel the reason Is the beautiful accidents might naturally happen In 
same as to the probability; foi he makes it nol two or three days, which cannot arrive with 
.1 ballet, in masque, bul s play, which is to any probability In the compass oi twenty foui 
resemble truth Bui foi death, thai Ii ought hour. ' rhere Is time t>> be allowed also foi 
no! to be represented. I have, besides the argu maturity <>i design, which amongst great .mil 
ments alleged by Lisideius, the authority of prudent persons, such as are often represented 
Ben fonson, who has forborne it in his trage in tragedy, cannot, with any likelihood of truth, 
dies; for both the death of Sejanus and Catiline be brought to pass at so short .1 warning 
are related; though. In the latter, 1 cannot bul Farther, bj tying themselves strictl) to the unity 
observe one Irregularity oi thai great poet) «>i place, and unbroken scenes, they are forced 
he has removed the scene In the same act, from man) times to omll some beauties which cannot 
Rome i>> Catiline's army, and from thence be shown where the acl began; bul might, ii 
again to Rome; and besides, has allowed .1 the scene were interrupted, and the stage cleared 
\i-i\ considerable time aftei Catiline's speech, h>i the prisons to enter in another place; and 
foi the striking oi the battle, and the return therefore the French poets are often forced 
oi Petreius, who Is to relate the even! of it i>> upon absurdities; for it the ad begins In .1 
the senate; which 1 should nol animadvert on chamber, all the persons In the play must have 
him, who was otherwise .1 painful observei of some business or othei t<> come thither, or else 

■ iv, or tlv of the stage, if he had the) are not to be shown that act; and some 

noi used extreme severity In his judgment tines theii characters are ver) unfitting to 



AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 



[6i 



appear there: as Buppose ii were the king's 
bed chamber, yet the meanest nun in the trag 
edy must come and despatch his business there, 
rather than in the I < > I > 1 > \ ' , or court yard, (which 
is fitter for him,) fur fear the stage should be 
cleared, and the scenes broken. Many times 
they fall by ii into a greater inconvenience; 

for they keep their scenes unbroken, and yd 

change the place; as in one of their newest 
plays, where the act begins in the street. There 
a gentleman is i<> meet bis friend; be sees him 
with his man, coming out front his father's 
house; they talk together, and the first goes 
out! the second, who is a lover, lias made an 
appointment with his mistress; she appears al 
the window, and then we are to imagine the 
scene lies under it. This gentleman is called 
away, ami leaves his servant widi his mistress: 
presently her father is heard from within; the 

young lady is afraid die serving man should 

he discovered, and thrusts him into a place 

Of safely, which is supposed lo lie her closel. 

After this, the father enters lo the daughter, 

and now the scene is in a house: for he is seek 
ing from one room lo another for Ihis poor 

Philipin, or French Diego, who is heard from 
within, drolling and breaking many a miserable 

conceit on the subject of his sad condition. In 
Ihis ridiculous manner die play goes forward, 
the Stage being never empty all die while: 
so lhal Ihe si reel, the window, the tWO houses, 
and Ihe closet, are made lo walk about, and the 

persons to stand still. Now, what, I beseech 
you, is more easy than io write a regular Frem h 

play, or e difficult than io write an irregular 

English one, like those of Fletcher, or of Shake 

speare r 1 

If they content themselves, as Corneille did, 

willi some Hat design, which, like an ill riddle, 
is found out ere it lie hall proposed, such plots 
we <■ ake every way regular as easily as 

they; bul whenever they endeavour to rise to 

any quick lurns and counter turns of plot, as 

some of them have attempted, since Corneille's 

plays have Keen less in VOgUe, you see they 

write as irregularly as we, though they cover 

it more speciously. Hence Ihe reason is per- 
spicuous, why no French plays, when trans- 
lated, have, or ever can succeed on the English 

stage. For, if you consider the plots, our own 

are fuller of variety; if the writing, ours are 

more quick and fuller of spirit; and therefore 

'lis a strange mistake in those who decry the 
way of writing plays in verse, as if the English 

therein imitated the French. We have bor- 
rowed nothing from them; our plots are wea ved 



in English looms: we endeavour therein to 
follow the variety and greatness of characters, 
which are derived i<> us from Shakespeare and 
Fleti hei ; the copiousness and well knitting of 

the intrigues we have from fonson; and for 

the verse itself we have English precedents ol 

elder dale than any of Corneille's plays. Not. 
to name our old comedies before Shakespeare, 
which were all vvril in verse of six feel, m 

Alexandrines, such as the French now use, - 

I can show in Shakespeare, many scenes of 
rhyme together, and Ihe like in Hen Jon .on :. 

tragedies: in "Catiline" and "Sejanus" some- 
times thirty or forty lines, I mean besides the 
' l s, or the monologues; which, by the way, 

Showed Hen no enemy lo this way of writing, 

especially if you read his "Sad Shepherd," 

which goes sometimes on rhyme, sometimes 

On blank verse, like an horse who eases himself 

on trot and amble. You find him likewise 
commending Fletcher's pastoral of "The 

Faithful Shepherdess," which is for the mosl 

part rhyme, though not refined to that purity 

to which it hath since been brought. And 

these examples are enough to clear us from a 
servile imitation <>f the French. 

But tO return whence I have digressed: I 

dare boldly affirm these two things of the 
English drama; First, that we have many 

plays of ours as regular as any of theirs, and 
which, besides, have more variety of plot and 

characters; and, secondly, that in most of the 
irregular plays <>f Shakespeare or Fletcher, 
( for Ben Jonson's are for the mosl pari regula t , I 

then- is a more masculine fancy, and greater 

spirit in the writing, than there is in any of 
the French. I could produce even in Shake- 
speare's and Fletcher's works, some plays wlm h 
are almost exactly formed; as (lie "Merry 
Wives of Windsor," anil "The Scornful Lady" : 
but, because (generally Speaking) Shakespeare, 

who writ first, did not perfectly observe the laws 

of comedy, and Fletcher, who came nearer to 
perfection, yet through carelessness made many 
faults; I will lake ihe pattern of a perfect 
play from Hen |onson, who was a careful and 
learned observer of the dramatic laws, and from 
all his comedies I shall select "The Silent 

Woman ;" of which I will make a shorl cxameii, 

according to those rules which the French 

observe. 

As Neander was beginning to examine "The 
Silt-iii Woman," Eugenius, earnestly regarding 

him: I beseech you, Neander, said he, gratify 
tin company, and me in particular, so fir as, 
beli lie you speak of ihe play, lo give us a chai.u 



162 



JOHN DRYDEN 



ter of the author; and tell us frankly your opin- 
ion, whether you do not think all writers, both 
French and English, ought to give place to him? 

I fear, replied Neander, that, in obeying your 
commands, I shall draw some envy on myself. 
Besides, in performing them, it will be first 
necessary to speak somewhat of Shakespeare 
and Fletcher, his rivals in poesy; and one of 
them, in my opinion, at least his equal, perhaps 
his sujK'rior. 

To begin then with Shakespeare. He was 
the man who of all modern, and perhaps an- 
cient poets, had the largest and most compre- 
hensive soul. All the images of nature were 
still present to him, and he drew them not labo- 
riously, but luckily: when he describes any- 
thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. 
Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, 
give him the greater commendation: he was 
naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles 
of books to read nature; he looked inwards, 
and found her there. I cannot say he is every- 
where alike ; were he so, I should do him injury 
to compare him with the greatest of mankind. 
He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit 
degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling 
into bombast. But he is always great, when 
some great occasion is presented to him: no 
man can say, he ever had a fit subject for his 
wit, and did not then raise himself as high above 
the rest of poets, 

Quantum Icnta so/cut inter viburna cupressi} 

The consideration of this made Mr. Hales 
of Eton say, that there was no subject of which 
any poet ever writ, but he would produce it 
much better done in Shakespeare; and how- 
ever others are now generally preferred before 
him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had 
contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, 
never equalled them to him in their esteem: 
and in the last king's court, when Ben's repu- 
tation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and 
with him the greater part of the courtiers, set 
our Shakespeare far above him. 

Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next 
to speak, had, with the advantage of Shake- 
speare's wit, which was their precedent, great 
natural gifts, improved by study; Beaumont 
especially being so accurate a judge of plays, 
that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted 
all his writings to his censure, and 'tis thought, 
used his judgment in correcting, if not contriv- 
ing, all his plots. What value he had for him, 

1 As do tin.' tall cypresses above the laggard shrubs. 



appears by the verses he writ to him; and there- 
fore I need speak no farther of it. The first 
play that brought Fletcher and him in esteem, 
was their "Philaster"; for before that, they 
had written two or three very unsuccessfully: 
as the like is reported of Ben Jonson, before 
he writ "Every Man in his Humour." Their 
plots were generally more regular than Shake- 
speare's, especially those which were made be- 
fore Beaumont's death; and they understood 
and imitated the conversation of gentlemen 
much better; whose wild debaucheries, and 
quickness of wit in repartees, no poet before 
them could paint as they have done. Humour, 
which Ben Jonson derived from particular 
persons, they made it not their business to 
describe: they represented all the passions very 
lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe 
the English language in them arrived to its 
highest perfection ; what words have since been 
taken in, are rather superfluous than orna- 
mental. Their plays are now the most pleas- 
ant and frequent entertainments of the stage; 
two of theirs being acted through the year for 
one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's: the reason is, 
because there is a certain gaiety in their come- 
dies, and pathos in their more serious plays, 
which suits generally with all men's humours. 
Shakespeare's language is likewise a little 
obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short 
of theirs. 

As for Jonson, to whose character I am now 
arrived, if we look upon him while he was him- 
self, (for his last plays were but his dotages,) 
I think him the most learned and judicious 
writer which any theatre ever had. He was a 
most severe judge of himself, as well as others. 
One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that 
he was frugal of it. In his works you find little 
to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and 
humour also in some measure, we had before 
him ; but something of art was wanting to the 
drama, till he came. He managed his strength 
to more advantage than any who preceded him. 
You seldom find him making love in any of his 
scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions; 
his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do 
it gracefully, especially when he knew he came 
after those who had performed both to such an 
height. Humour was his proper sphere ; and 
in that he delighted most to represent mechanic 
people. He was deeply conversant in the 
ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he bor- 
rowed boldly from them : there is scarce a 
poet or historian among the Roman authors of 
those times, whom he has not translated in 



JOHN LOCKE 



163 



"Sejanus" and "Catiline." But he has done 
his robberies so openly, that one may see he 
fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades 
authors like a monarch; and what would be 
theft in other poets, is only victory in him. 
Willi the spoils of these writers he so represents 
old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and 
customs, that if one of their poets had written 
either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it 
than in him. If there was any fault in his 
language, it was, that he weaved it too closely 
and laboriously, in his comedies especially: 
perhaps too, he did a little loo much Romanize 
our tongue, leaving the words which he trans- 
lated almost as much Latin as he found them: 
wherein, though he learnedly followed their 
language, he did not enough comply with the 
idiom of ours. If I would compare him with 
Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more 
correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit. 
Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our 
dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the 
pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, 
but I love Shakespeare. To conclude of him; 
as he has given us the most correct plays, so 
in the precepts which he has laid down in his 
" Discoveries," we have as many and profitable 
rules for perfecting the stage, as any wherewith 
the French can furnish us. 



JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) 

OF THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDER- 
STANDING 

1. Introduction. — The last resort a man 
has recourse to, in the conduct of himself, is 
his understanding; for though we distinguish 
the faculties of the mind, and give the supreme 
command to the will, as to an agent, yet the 
truth is, the man, who is the agent, determines 
himself to this or that voluntary action, upon 
some precedent knowledge, or appearance of 
knowledge, in the understanding. No man 
ever sets himself about anything but upon some 
view or other, which serves him for a reason for 
what he does: and whatsoever faculties he 
employs, the understanding, with such light as 
it has, well or ill informed, constantly leads; 
and by that light, true or false, all his opera- 
tive powers are directed. The will itself, how 
absolute and uncontrollable soever it may be 
thought, never fails in its obedience to the 
dictates of the understanding. Temples have 
their sacred images, and we see what influence 
they have always had over a great part of man- 



kind. But in truth, the ideas and images in 
men's minds are the invisible powers that con- 
stantly govern them, and to these they all 
universally pay a ready submission. It is 
therefore of the highest concernment that great 
care should be taken of the understanding, to 
conduct it right in "the search of knowledge, 
and in the judgments it makes. 

The logic now in use has so long possessed 
the chair, as the only art taught in the schools, 
for the direction of the mind in the study of 
the arts and sciences, that it would perhaps be 
thought an affectation of novelty to suspect that 
rules that have served the learned world these 
two or three thousand years, and which, with- 
out any complaint of defects, the learned have 
rested in, are not sufficient to guide the under- 
standing. And I should not doubt but this 
attempt would be censured as vanity or pre- 
sumption, did not the great Lord Verulam's 
authority justify it; who, not servilely thinking 
learning could not be advanced beyond what it 
was, because for many ages it had not been, 
did not rest in the lazy approbation and ap- 
plause of what was, because it was, but enlarged 
his mind to what it might be. In his preface 
to his Novum Organum, concerning logic, he 
pronounces thus: "Qui sumtnas dialecticae 
partes Iribucrunt, atque inde fidissima scientiis 
praesidia comparari putarunt, verissime et 
optime vidcrunt intcllectum humanum, sibi 
pcrmissum, merito suspectum esse debcre. 
Verum infirmior omnino est malo medicina ; 
nee ipsa mali expers. Siquidem dialectica, 
quae rccepta est, licet ad civilia ct artes, quae in 
sermone et opinione positae sunt, rectissime ad- 
hibeatur; naturae tamen subtilitatem longo 
intcrvallo non attingit, et prensando quod non 
capit, ad errores potius stabilicndos et quasi 
Jigendos, quam ad viam veritati aperiendam 
valuit." 

"They," says he, "who attributed so much 
to logic, perceived very well and truly that it 
was not safe to trust the understanding to itself 
without the guard of any rules. But the 
remedy reached not the evil, but became a 
part of it, for the logic which took place, 
though it might do well enough in civil affairs 
and the arts, which consisted in talk and 
opinion, yet comes very far short of subtlety 
in the real performances of nature; and, 
catching at what it cannot reach, has served 
to confirm and establish errors, rather than to 
open a way to truth." And therefore a little 
after he says, "That it is absolutely necessary 
that a better and perfecter use and employ- 



164 



JOHN LOCKE 



ment of the mind and understanding should 
be introduced." " Necessario rcquiritur ut 
melior et perfectior mentis et intellcctus humani 
usus et adoperatio introducatur." 

2. Parts. — There is, it is visible, great 
variety in men's understandings, and their 
natural constitutions put so wide a difference 
between some men in this respect, that art 
and industry would never be able to master, 
end their very natures seem to want a founda- 
tion to raise on it that which other men easily 
attain unto. Amongst men of equal education 
there is great inequality of parts. And the 
woods of America, as well as the schools of 
Athens, produce men of several abilities in 
the same kind. Though this be so, yet I 
imagine most men come very short of what 
they might attain unto, in their several degrees, 
by a neglect of their understandings. A few 
rules of logic are thought sufficient in this case 
for those who pretend to the highest improve- 
ment, whereas I think there are a great many 
natural defects in the understanding capable 
of amendment, which are overlooked and 
wholly neglected. And it is easy to perceive 
that men are guilty of a great many faults in 
the exercise and improvement of this faculty of 
the mind, which hinder them in their progress, 
and keep them in ignorance and error all their 
lives. Some of them I shall take notice of, 
and endeavour to point out proper remedies 
for, in the following discourse. 

3. Reasoning. — Besides the want of deter- 
mined ideas, and of sagacity and exercise in 
finding out and laying in order intermediate 
ideas, there are three miscarriages that men 
are guilty of, in reference to their reason, 
whereby this faculty is hindered in them from 
that service it might do and was designed for. 
And he that reflects upon the actions and dis- 
courses of mankind will find their defects in 
this kind very frequent and very observable. 

1. The first is of those who seldom reason 
at all, but do and think according to the 
example of others, whether parents, neigh- 
bours, ministers, or who else they are pleased 
to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, 
for the saving of themselves the pains and 
trouble of thinking and examining for them- 
selves. 

2 The second is of those who put passion 
in the place of reason, and being resolved that 
shall govern their actions and arguments, 
neither use their own, nor hearken to other 
people's reason, any further than it suits their 
humour, interest, or party; and these one 



may observe commonly content themselves 
with words which have no distinct ideas to 
them, though in other matters, that they come 
with an unbiassed indifferency to, they want 
not abilities to talk and hear reason, where 
they have no secret inclination that hinders 
them from being tractable to it. 

3. The third sort is of those who readily 
and sincerely follow reason, but for want of 
having that which one may call large, sound, 
roundabout sense, have not a full view of all 
that relates to the question, and may be of 
moment to decide it. We are all shortsighted, 
and very often see but one side of a matter; 
our views are not extended to all that has a 
connection with it. From this defect I think 
no man is free. We see but in part, and we 
know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder 
we conclude not right from our partial views. 
This might instruct the proudest esteemer of 
his own parts, how useful it is to talk and con- 
sult with others, even such as come short of 
him in capacity, quickness, and penetration; 
for since no one sees all, and we generally 
have different prospects of the same thing ac- 
cording to our different, as I may say, positions 
to it, it is not incongruous to think, nor be- 
neath any man to try, whether another may 
not have notions of things which have escaped 
him, and which his reason would make use of 
if they came into his mind. The faculty of 
reasoning seldom or never deceives those who 
trust to it; its consequences, from what it 
builds on, are evident and certain; but that 
which it oftenest, if not only, misleads us in is, 
that the principles from which we conclude 
the grounds upon which we bottom our rea- 
soning, are but a part ; something is left out 
which should go into the reckoning, to make it 
just and exact. Here we may imagine a vast 
and almost infinite advantage that angels and 
separate spirits may have over us, who in their 
several degrees of elevation above us may be 
endowed with more comprehensive faculties; 
and some of them perhaps, having perfect and 
exact views of all finite beings that come un- 
der their consideration, can, as it were, in the 
twinkling of an eye, collect together all their 
scattered and almost boundless relations. A 
mind so furnished, what reason has it to 
acquiesce in the certainty of its conclusions ! 

In this we may see the reason why some 
men of study and thought, that reason right 
and are lovers of truth, do make no great 
advances in their discoveries of it. Error and 
truth are uncertainly blended in their minds; 



THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING 



165 



their decisions are lame and defective, and 
they are very often mistaken in their judg- 
ments: the reason whereof is, they converse 
but with one sort of men, they read but one 
sort of books, they will not come in the hear- 
ing but of one sort of notions; the truth is, 
they canton out to themselves a little Goshen 
in the intellectual world, where light shines, 
and as they conclude, day blesses them; but 
the rest of that vast expansum they give up 
to night and darkness, and so avoid coming 
near it. They have a pretty traffic with 
known correspondents, in some little creek; 
within that they confine themselves, and are 
dexterous managers enough of the wares and 
products of that corner with which they con- 
tent themselves, but will not venture out into 
the great ocean of knowledge, to survey the 
riches that nature hath stored other parts 
with, no less genuine, no less solid, no less 
useful than what has fallen to their lot, in the 
admired plenty and sufficiency of their own 
little spot, which to them contains whatsoever 
is good in the universe. Those who live thus 
mewed up within their own contracted terri- 
tories, and will not look abroad beyond the 
boundaries that chance, conceit, or laziness 
has set to their inquiries, but live separate 
from the notions, discourses, and attainments 
of the rest of mankind, may not amiss be rep- 
resented by the inhabitants of the Marian 
Islands, who, being separated by a large tract 
of sea from all communion with the habitable 
parts of the earth, thought themselves the 
only people of the world. And though the 
straitness of the conveniences of life amongst 
them had never reached so far as to the use of 
fire, till the Spaniards, not many years since, 
in their voyages from Acapulco to Manilla, 
brought it amongst them; yet, in the want 
and ignorance of almost all things, they looked 
upon themselves, even after that the Spaniards 
had brought amongst them the notice of va- 
riety of nations, abounding in sciences, arts 
and conveniences of life, of which they knew 
nothing; they looked upon themselves, I say, 
as the happiest and wisest people of the uni- 
verse. But for all that, nobody, I think, will 
imagine them deep naturalists or solid meta- 
physicians; nobody will deem the quickest- 
sighted amongst them to have very enlarged 
views in ethics or politics; nor can any one 
allow the most capable amongst them to be 
advanced so far in his understanding as to 
have any other knowledge but of the few little 
things of his and the neighbouring islands 



within his commerce; but far enough from 
that comprehensive enlargement of mind 
which adorns a soul devoted to truth, assisted 
with letters, and a free generation of the 
several views and sentiments of thinking men 
of all sides. Let not men, therefore, that 
would have a sight of what every one pretends 
to be desirous to have a sight of, truth in its 
full extent, narrow and blind their own pros- 
pect. Let not men think there is not truth 
but in the sciences that they study, or books 
that they read. To prejudge other men's 
notions, before we have looked into them, is 
not to show their darkness, but to put out our 
own eyes. "Try all things, hold fast that 
which is good," is a divine rule, coming from 
the Father of light and truth, and it is hard to 
know what other way men can come at truth, 
to lay hold of it, if they do not dig and search 
for it as for gold and hid treasure; but he 
that does so must have much earth and rub- 
bish before he gets the pure metal; sand and 
pebbles and dross usually lie blended with it, 
but the gold is nevertheless gold, and will en- 
rich the man that employs his pains to seek 
and separate it. Neither is there any danger 
he should be deceived by the mixture. Every 
man carries about him a touchstone, if he 
will make use of it, to distinguish substantial 
gold from superficial glitterings, truth from 
appearances. And, indeed, the use and benefit 
of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is 
spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, 
overweening presumption, and narrowing our 
minds. The want of exercising it in the full 
extent of things intelligible, is that which 
weakens and extinguishes this noble faculty in 
us. Trace it and see whether it be not so. 
The day-labourer in a country village has 
commonly but a small pittance of knowledge, 
because his ideas and notions have been con- 
fined to the narrow bounds of a poor conver- 
sation and employment: the low mechanic of 
a country town does somewhat outdo him: 
porters and cobblers of great cities surpass 
them. A country gentleman who, leaving 
Latin and learning in the university, removes 
thence to his mansionhouse, and associates 
with neighbours of the same strain, who relish 
nothing but hunting and a bottle: with those 
alone he spends his time, with those alone he 
converses, and can away with no company 
whose discourse goes beyond what claret and 
dissoluteness inspire. Such a patriot, formed 
in this happy way of improvement, cannot 
fail, as we see, to give notable decisions upon 



i66 



JOHN LOCKE 



the bench at quarter-sessions, and eminent 
proofs of his skill in politics, when the strength 
of his purse and party have advanced him to 
a more conspicuous station. To such a one, 
truly, an ordinary coffee-house gleaner of the 
city is an arrant statesman, and as much 
superior to as a man conversant about White- 
hall and the court is to an ordinary shop- 
keeper. To carry this a little further: here is 
one muffled up in the zeal and infallibility of 
his own sect, and will not touch a book or 
enter into debate with a person that will ques- 
tion any of those things which to him are 
sacred. Another surveys our differences in re- 
ligion with an equitable and fair indifference, 
and so finds, probably, that none of them are 
in everything unexceptionable. These divi- 
sions and systems were made by men, and 
carry the mark of fallible on them; and in 
those whom he differs from, and till he opened 
his eyes had a general prejudice against, he 
meets with more to be said for a great many 
things than before he was aware of, or could 
have imagined. Which of these two now is 
most likely to judge right in our religious con- 
troversies, and to be most stored with truth, 
the mark all pretend to aim at? All these 
men that I have instanced in, thus unequally 
furnished with truth and advanced in know- 
ledge, I suppose, of equal natural parts ; all the 
odds between them has been the different scope 
that has been given to their understandings to 
range in, for the gathering up of information 
and furnishing their heads with ideas and 
notions and observations, whereon to employ 
their mind and form their understandings. 

It will possibly be objected, "who is suf- 
ficient for all this?" I answer, more than 
can be imagined. Every one knows what his 
proper business is, and what, according to the 
character he makes of himself, the world may 
justly expect of him; and to answer that, he 
will find he will have time and opportunity 
enough to furnish himself, if he will not de- 
prive himself by a narrowness of spirit of 
those helps that are at hand. I do not say, 
to be a good geographer, that a man should 
visit every mountain, river, promontory, and 
creek upon the face of the earth, view the 
buildings and survey the land everywhere, as 
if he were going to make a purchase ; but yet 
every one must allow that he shall know a 
country better that makes often sallies into it 
and traverses up and down, than he that like 
a mill-horse goes still round in the same track, 
or keeps within the narrow bounds of a field 



or two that delight him. He that will inquire 
out the best books in every science, and in- 
form himself of the most material authors of 
the several sects of philosophy and religion, 
will not find it an infinite work to acquaint 
himself with the sentiments of mankind con- 
cerning the most weighty and comprehensive 
subjects. Let him exercise the freedom of his 
reason and understanding in such a latitude 
as this, and his mind will be strengthened, his 
capacity enlarged, his faculties improved; and 
the light which the remote and scattered parts 
of truth will give to one another will so assist 
his judgment, that he will seldom be widely 
out, or miss giving proof of a clear head and 
a comprehensive knowledge. At least, this is 
the only way I know to give the understanding 
its due improvement to the full extent of 
its capacity, and to distinguish the two most 
different things I know in. the world, a logi- 
cal chicaner from a man of reason. Only, he 
that would thus give the mind its flight, and 
send abroad his inquiries into all parts after 
truth, must be sure to settle in his head deter- 
mined ideas of all that he employs his thoughts 
about, and never fail to judge himself, and 
judge unbiassedly, of all that he receives from 
others, either in their writings or discourses. 
Reverence or prejudice must not be suffered 
to give beauty or deformity to any of their 
opinions. 

4. Of Practice and Habits. — We are born 
with faculties and powers capable- almost of 
anything, such at least as would carry us further 
than can easily be imagined: but it is only the 
exercise of those powers which gives us ability 
and skill in anything, and leads us towards 
perfection. 

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever 
be brought to the carriage and language of a 
gentleman, though his body be as well-pro- 
portioned, and his joints as supple, and his 
natural parts not any way inferior. The legs 
of a dancing-master and the fingers of a 
musician fall as it were naturally, without 
thought or pains, into regular and admirable 
motions. Bid them change their parts, and 
they will in vain endeavour to produce like 
motions in the members not used to them, 
and it will require length of time and long 
practice to attain but some degrees of a like 
ability. What incredible and astonishing ac- 
tions do we find rope-dancers and tumblers 
bring their bodies to ! Not but that sundry in 
almost all manual arts are as wonderful; but 
I name those which the world takes notice of 



THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING 



167 



for such, because on that very account they 
give money to see them. All these admired 
motions, beyond the reach and almost con- 
ception of unpractised spectators, are nothing 
but the mere effects of use and industry in 
men whose bodies have nothing peculiar in 
them from those of the amazed lookers-on. 

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind: 
practice makes it what it is; and most even 
of those excellencies which are looked on 
as natural endowments, will be found, when 
examined into more narrowly, to be the prod- 
uct of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch 
only by repeated actions. Some men are re- 
marked for pleasantness in raillery; others for 
apologues and apposite diverting stories. This 
is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, 
and that the rather because it is not got by 
rules, and those who excel in either of them 
never purposely set themselves to the study of 
it as an art to be learnt. But yet it is true, 
that at first some lucky hit, which took with 
somebody and gained him commendation, en- 
couraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts 
and endeavours that way, till at last he in- 
sensibly got a facility in it, without perceiving 
how; and that is attributed wholly to nature 
which was much more the effect of use and 
practice. I do not deny that natural dis- 
position may often give the first rise to it, but 
that never carries a man far without use and 
exercise, and it is practice alone that brings 
the powers of the mind, as well as those of the 
body, to their perfection. Many a good poetic 
vein is buried under a trade, and never pro- 
duces anything for want of improvement. We 
see the ways of discourse and reasoning are 
very different, even concerning the same 
matter, at court and in the university. And 
he that will go but from Westminster-hall to 
the Exchange will find a different genius and 
turn in their ways of talking; and yet one 
cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city 
were born with different parts from those who 
were bred at the university or inns of court. 

To what purpose all this but to show that 
the difference so observable in men's under- 
standings and parts does not arise so much 
from their natural faculties as acquired habits. 
He would be laughed at that should go about 
to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger 
at past fifty. And he will not have much 
better success who shall endeavour at that 
age to make a man reason well, or speak 
handsomely, who has never been used to it, 
though you should lay before him a collection 



of all the best precepts of logic or oratory. 
Nobody is made anything by hearing of rules 
or laying them up in his memory; practice 
must settle the habit of doing without reflect- 
ing on the rule ; and you may as well hope to 
make a good painter or musician extempore, 
by a lecture and instruction in the arts of 
music and painting, as a coherent thinker or a 
strict reasoner by a set of rules showing him 
wherein right reasoning consists. 

This being so that defects and weakness in 
men's understanding, as well as other facul- 
ties, come from want of a right use of their 
own minds, I am apt to think the fault is 
generally mislaid upon nature, and there is 
often a complaint of want of parts when the 
fault lies in want of a due improvement of 
them. We see men frequently dexterous and 
sharp enough in making a bargain who, if you 
reason with them about matters of religion, 
appear perfectly stupid. 

5. Ideas. — I will not here, in what relates 
to the right conduct and improvement of the 
understanding, repeat again the getting clear 
and determined ideas, and the employing our 
thoughts rather about them than about sounds 
put for them, nor of settling the signification 
of words which we use with ourselves in the 
search of truth, or with others in discoursing 
about it. Those hindrances of our under- 
standings in the pursuit of knowledge I have 
sufficiently enlarged upon in another place, 
so that nothing more needs here to be said of 
those matters. 

6. Principles. — There is another fault that 
stops or misleads men in their knowledge 
which I have also spoken something of, but 
yet is necessary to mention here again, that 
we may examine it to the bottom and see the 
root it springs from, and that is, a custom of 
taking up with principles that are not self- 
evident, and very often not so much as true. 
It is not unusual to see men rest their opinions 
upon foundations that have no more certainty 
and solidity than the propositions built on 
them and embraced for their sake. Such 
foundations are these and the like, viz., the 
founders or leaders of my party are good men, 
and therefore their tenets are true; it is the 
opinion of a sect that is erroneous, therefore 
it is false; it hath been long received in the 
world, therefore it is true; or, it is new, and 
therefore false. 

These, and many the like, which are by no 
means the measures of truth and falsehood, 
the generality of men make the standards by 



i68 



SAMUEL PEPYS 



which they accustom their understanding to 
judge. And thus, they falling into a habit of 
determining of truth and falsehood by such 
wrong measures, it is no wonder they should 
embrace error for certainty, and be very posi- 
tive in things they have no ground for. 

There is not any who pretends to the least 
reason, but when any of these his false maxims 
are brought to the test, must acknowledge 
them to be fallible, and such as he will not 
allow in those that differ from him; and yet 
after he is convinced of this you shall see him 
go on in the use of them, and the very next 
occasion that offers argue again upon the same 
grounds. Would one not be ready to think 
that men are willing to impose upon them- 
selves, and mislead their own understandings, 
who conduct them by such wrong measures, 
even after they see they cannot be relied on? 
But yet they will not appear so blamable as 
may be thought at first sight; for I think 
there are a great many that argue thus in 
earnest, and do it not to impose on themselves 
or others. They are persuaded of what they 
say, and think there is weight in it, though in 
a like case they have been convinced there is 
none; but men would be intolerable to them- 
selves and contemptible to others if they should 
embrace opinions without any ground, and 
hold what they could give no manner of reason 
for. True or false, solid or sandy, the mind 
must have some foundation to rest itself upon, 
and, as I have remarked in another place, it 
no sooner entertains any proposition but it 
presently hastens to some hypothesis to bot- 
tom it on ; till then it is unquiet and unsettled. 
So much do our own very tempers dispose us 
to a right use of our understandings if we 
would follow, as we should, the inclinations of 
our nature. 

In some matters of concernment, especially 
those of religion, men are not permitted to be 
always wavering and uncertain, they must em- 
brace and profess some tenets or other; and 
it would be a shame, nay a contradiction too 
heavy for any one's mind to lie constantly 
under, for him to pretend seriously to be per- 
suaded of the truth of any religion, and yet not 
to be able to give any reason of his belief, or 
to say anything for his preference of this to 
any other opinion: and therefore they must 
make use of some principles or other, and those 
can be no other than such as they have and 
can manage; and to say they are not in ear- 
nest persuaded by them, and do not rest upon 
those they make use of, is contrary to experi- 



ence, and to allege that they are not misled, 
when we complain they are 

SAMUEL PEPYS (1633-1703) 
From HIS DIARY 

Aug. 22d., 1661. To the Privy-Seale, and 
sealed: ' so home at noon, and there took my 
wife by coach to my uncle Fenner's, where 
there was both at his house and the Sessions 
great deal of company, but poor entertain- 
ment, which I wonder at; and the house so 
hot, that my uncle Wight, my father, and I 
were fain to go out, and stay at an alehouse 
awhile to cool ourselves. Then back again 
and to church — my father's family being all 
in mourning, doing him 2 the greatest honour, 
the world believing that he did give us it: so 
to church, and staid out the sermon. 

23d. To W. Joyce's, where my wife was, 
and I took her to the Opera, and showed her 
the "Witts," 3 which I had seen already twice, 
and was most highly pleased with it. 

24th. Called to Sir W. Batten's, to see the 
strange creature that Captain Holmes hath 
brought with him from Guiny; it is a great 
baboon, but so much like a man in most 
things, that, though they say there is a species 
of them, yet I cannot believe but that it is a 
monster got of a man and she-baboon. I do 
believe that it already understands much 
English, and I am of the mind that it might 
be taught to speak or make signs. To the 
Opera, and there saw "Hamlet, Prince of 
Denmarke," done with scenes 4 very well, but 
above all, Betterton did the Prince's part be- 
yond imagination. 

25th. (Lord's day.) Home; found my 
Lady Batten and her daughter to look some- 
thing askew upon my wife, because my wife 
do not buckle to them, and is not solicitous 
for their acquaintance. 

27th. Casting up my father's accounts, and 
upon the whole I find that all he hath in money 
of his own due to him in the world is 45/., 
and he owes about the same sum: so that I 
cannot but think in what a condition he had 
left my mother, if he should have died before 

1 Pepys was deputy for his kinsman and patron, 
the Earl of Sandwich, Keeper of the Great Wardrobe 
and Clerk of the Privy Seal. 2 Pepys's Uncle 

Robert, who had died early in July. 3 a play by 

Davenant 4 The use of modern painted scenes 

had only recently been introduced on the English 
stage. 



HIS DIARY 



169 



my uncle Robert. To the Theatre, and saw 
the "Antipodes," ' wherein there is much 
mirth, but no great matter else. I found a 
letter from my Lord Sandwich, who is now 
very well again of his feaver, but not yet gone 
from Alicante, where he lay sick, and was 
twice there bled. This letter dated the 22nd. 
July last, which puts me out of doubt of his 
being ill. 

27th. This morning to the Wardrobe, and 
there took leave of my Lord Hinchingbroke 
and his brother, and saw them go out by 
coach toward Rye in their way to France, 
whom God bless. Then I was called up to 
my Lady's 2 bedside, where we talked an hour 
about Mr. Edward Montagu's disposing of the 
5000/. for my Lord's preparation for Portugal, 
and our fears that he will not do it to my 
Lord's honour, and less to his profit, which I 
am to inquire a little after. My wife and I to 
the theatre, and there saw "The Jovial Crew," 
where the King, Duke, and Duchess, and 
Madame Palmer, were; and my wife, to her 
great content, had a full sight of them all the 
while. The play full of mirth. 

28th. This day, I counterfeited a letter to 
Sir W. Pen, as from the thief that stole his 
tankard lately, only to abuse and laugh at 
him. 

29th. My aunt Bell came to dine with me, 
and we were very merry. Mr. Evans, the 
taylor, whose daughter we have had a mind 
to get a wife for Tom, told us that he hath not 
to except against us or our motion, but that 
the estate that God hath blessed him with is 
too great to give, where there is nothing in 
present possession but a trade and house; and 
so we friendly ended. 

30th. My wife and I to Drury Lane to the 
French comedy, which was so ill done, and 
the scenes and company and everything else 
so nasty and out of order and poor, that I was 
sick all the while in my mind to be there. 
Here my wife met with a son of my Lord 
Somerset, whom she knew in France, a pretty 
gentleman, but I showed him no great coun- 
tenance, to avoid further acquaintance. That 
done, there being nothing pleasant but the 
foolery of the farce, we went home. 

31st. To Bartholomew fair, 3 and there met 
with my Ladies Jemimah and Paulina, with 
Mr. Pickering and Mademoiselle, at seeing 



1 a comedy by Brome 2 the Countess of Sand- 
wich 3 a famous fair, held in Smithfield, London, 
from 11 33 to 1853 



the monkeys dance, which was much to see, 
when they could be brought to do so, but it 
troubled me to sit among such nasty company. 
After that, with them into Christ's Hospital, 
and there Mr. Pickering brought them some 
fairings, and I did give every one of them a 
bauble, which was the little globes of glass 
with things hanging in them, which pleased 
the ladies very well. After that, home with 
them in their coach, and there was called up 
to my Lady, and she would have me stay to 
talk with her, which I did I think a full 
hour. . . . 

Thus ends the month. My mayde Jane 
newly gone, and Pall ' left now to do all the 
work till another mayde comes, which shall not 
be till she goes away into the country with my 
mother. No money comes in, so that I have 
been forced to borrow a great deal for my own 
expenses, and to furnish. my father, to leave 
things in order. I have some trouble about 
my brother Tom, who is now left to keep my 
father's trade, in which I have great fears that 
he will miscarry for want of brains and care. 
At Court things are in very ill condition, there 
being so much emulacion, poverty, and the 
vices of drinking, swearing, and loose amours, 
that I know not what will be the end of it, 
but confusion. And the Clergy so high, that 
all people that I meet with do protest against 
their practice. In short, I see no content or 
satisfaction any where, in any -one sort of 
people. The Benevolence 2 proves so little, 
and an occasion of so much discontent every- 
where, that it had better it had never been set 
up. I think to subscribe 20/. We are at our 
Office quiet, only for lack of money all things 
go to rack. Our very bills offered to be sold 
upon the Exchange at 10 per cent. loss. We 
are upon getting Sir R. Ford's house added to 
our office; but I see so many difficulties will 
follow in pleasing of one another in the divid- 
ing of it, and in becoming bound personally 
to pay the rent of 200/. per annum, that I do 
believe it will yet scarce come to pass. The 
season very sickly everywhere of strange and 
fatal fevers. 

September 1st. (Lord's day.) Last night 
being very rainy, (the water) broke into my 
house, the gutter being stopped, and spoiled 
all my ceilings almost. At church in the morn- 
ing. After dinner we were very merry with 
Sir W. Pen about the loss of his tankard, 



1 Pepys's sister Paulina 2 a voluntary contri- 

bution of the people to the King 



i;o 



SAMUEL PEPYS 



though all be but a cheate, and he do not yet 
understand it; but the tankard was stole by 
Sir W. Batten, and the letter, as from the 
thief, wrote by me, which makes very good 
sport. Captain Holmes and I by coach to 
White Hall; in our way, I found him by dis- 
course to be a great friend of my Lord's, and 
he told me there was a many did seek to re- 
move him ; but they were old seamen, such as 
Sir J. Minnes, but he would name no more, 
though he do believe Sir W. Batten is one of 
them that do envy him, but he says he knows 
that the King do so love him, and the Duke 
of York too, that there is no fear of him. He 
seems to be very well acquainted with the 
King's mind, and with all the several factions 
at Court, and spoke all with so much frank- 
ness, that I do take him to be my Lord's 
good friend, and one able to do him great 
service, being a cunning fellow, and one, by 
his own confession to me, that can put on two 
several faces, and look his enemies in the face 
with as much love as his friends. But, good 
God ! what an age is this, and what a world 
is this ! that a man cannot live without play- 
ing the knave and dissimulation. 

2d. Mr. Pickering and I to Westminster 
Hall again, and there walked an houre or two 
talking, and, though he be a fool, yet he keeps 
much company, and will tell all he sees or 
hears, and so a man may understand what the 
common talk of the town is. And I find that 
there are endeavours to get my Lord out of 
play at sea, which I believe Mr. Coventry and 
the Duke do think will make them more abso- 
lute; but I hope for all this, they will not be 
able to do it. My wife tells me that she met 
at Change with my young ladies of the Ward- 
robe, and there helped them to buy things, 
and also with Mr. Somerset, who did give her 
a bracelet of rings, which did a little trouble 
me, though I know there is no hurt yet in it, 
but only for fear of further acquaintance. 

3d. Dined at home, and then with my 
wife to the Wardrobe, where my Lady's child 
was christened, my Lord Crewe and his lady, 
and my Lady Montagu, my Lord's mother-in- 
law, were the witnesses, and named Catherine, 
the Queen elect's name; but to my and all 
our trouble, the Parson of the parish christened 
her, and did not sign the child with the sign 
of the cross. After that was done, we had a 
very fine banquet. 

4th. My wife come to me to Whitehall, 
and we went and walked a good while in St. 
James's Parke to see the brave alterations. 



5th. Put my mother and Pall into the 
wagon, and saw them going presently — Pall 
crying exceedingly. To my uncle Fenner's to 
dinner, in the way meeting a French footman 
with feathers, who was in quest of my wife, 
and spoke with her privately, but I could not 
tell what it was, only my wife promised to go 
to some place to-morrow morning, which do 
trouble my mind how to know whither it was. 
My wife and I to the fair, and I showed her 
the Italians dancing the ropes, and the women 
that do strange tumbling tricks. 

6th. I went to the Theatre, and saw 
"Elder Brother" acted; meeting here with Sir 
J. Askew, Sir Theophilus Jones, and another 
knight, with Sir W. Pen, we to the Ship taverne, 
and there staid, and were merry till late at 
night. 

7th. Having appointed the young ladies at 
the Wardrobe to go with them to the play to- 
day, my wife and I took them to the Theatre, 
where we seated ourselves close by the King, 
and Duke of York, and Madame Palmer, 
which was great content; and, indeed, I can 
never enough admire her beauty. And here 
was "Bartholomew Fayre," 1 with the puppet- 
showe, acted to-day, which had not been these 
forty years, it being so satyrical against Puri- 
tanism, they durst not till now, which is 
strange they should already dare to do it, and 
the King to countenance it, but I do never a 
whit like it the better for the puppets, but 
rather the worse. Thence home- with the 
ladies, it being by reason of our staying a 
great while for the King's coming, and the 
length of the play, near nine o'clock before it 
was done. 

8th. (Lord's day.) To church, and com- 
ing home again, found our new mayd Doll 
asleep, that she could not hear to let us in, 
so that we were fain to send a boy in at a 
window to open the door to us. Begun to 
look over my accounts, and, upon the whole, 
I do find myself, by what I can yet see, worth 
near 600/, for which God be blessed. 

9th. To Salisbury Court play-house, where 
was acted the first time, "'Tis pity she's a 
W — e," 2 a simple play, and ill acted, only it 
was my fortune to sit by a most pretty and 
most ingenious lady, which pleased me much. 
To the Dolphin, to drink the 305. that we got 
the other day of Sir W. Pen about his tankard. 
Here was Sir R. Slingsby, Holmes, Captain 



1 a comedy by Ben Jonson 
John Ford 



8 a tragedy by 



HIS DIARY 



171 



Allen, Mr. Turner, his wife and daughter, my 
Lady Batten, and Mrs. Martha, &c, and an 
excellent company of fiddlers; so we exceed- 
ing merry till late; and then we begun to tell 
Sir W. Pen the business, but he had been 
drinking to-day, and so is almost gone, that 
we could not make him understand it, which 
caused us more sport. 

nth. To Dr. Williams, who did carry me 
into his garden, where he hath abundance of 
grapes: and he did show me how a dog that 
he hath do kill all the cats that come thither 
to kill his pigeons, and do afterwards bury 
them; and do it with so much care that they 
shall be quite covered; that if the tip of the 
tail hangs out, he will take up the cat again, 
and dig the hole deeper, which is very strange; 
and he tells me, that he do believe he hath 
killed above 100 cats. Home to my house to 
dinner, where I found my wife's brother Baity 
as fine as hands could make him, and his 
servant, a Frenchman, to wait on him, and 
come to have my wife visit a young lady 
which he is a servant ' to, and have hope to 
trepan, and get for his wife. I did give way 
for my wife to go with him. Walking through 
Lincoln's Inn Fields, observed at the Opera 
a new play, "Twelfth Night," was acted there, 
and the King there: so I, against my own 
mind and resolution, could not forbear to go 
in, which did make the play seem a burthen 
to me; and I took no pleasure at all in it: 
and so, after it was done, went home with my 
mind troubled for my going thither, after my 
swearing to my wife that I would never go to 
a play without her. My wife was with her 
brother to see his mistress to-day, and says 
she is young, rich, and handsome, but not 
likely for him to get. 

1 2th. To my Lady's to dinner at the Ward- 
robe ; and in my way upon the Thames, I saw 
the King's new pleasure-boat that is come now 
for the King to take pleasure in above bridge, 
and also two Gundaloes, 2 that are lately 
brought, which are very rich and fine. Called 
at Sir W. Batten's, and there hear that Sir 
W. Pen do take our jest of the tankard very 
ill, which I am sorry for. 

13th. I was sent for by my uncle Fenner 
to come and advise about the burial of my 
aunt, the butcher, who died yesterday. Thence 
to the Wardrobe, where I found my wife, and 
thence she and I to the water to spend the 



afternoon in pleasure, and so we went to old 
George's, and there eat as much as we would 
of a hot shoulder of mutton, and so to boat 
again and home. 

14th. Before we had dined comes Sir R. 
Slingsby, and his lady, and a great deal of 
company, to take my wife and I out by barge, 
to show them the King's and Duke's yachts. 
We had great pleasure, seeing all four yachts, 
viz., these two, and the two Dutch ones. 

15th. (Lord's day.) To my aunt Kite's in 
the morning, to help my uncle Fenner to put 
things in order against anon for the burial. 
After sermon, with my wife to the burial of 
my aunt Kite, where, besides us and my uncle 
Fenner's family, there was none of any quality, 
but poor and rascally people. So we went to 
church with the corps, and there had service 
read at the grave, and back again with Pegg 
Kite, who will be, I doubt, a troublesome car- 
rion to us executors, but if she will not be 
ruled, I shall fling up my executorship. 

16th. Word is brought me from my brother's, 
that there is a fellow come from my father out 
of the country, on purpose to speak with me, 
and he made a story how he had lost his letter, 
but he was sure it was for me to come into the 
country, which I believed, but I afterwards 
found that it was a rogue that did use to play 
such tricks to get money of people, but he got 
none of me. Letters from my father informing 
me of the Court, 1 and that I must come down 
and meet him at Impington, which I presently 
resolved to do. 

1 7th. Got up, telling my wife of my journey, 
and she got me to hire her a horse to go along 
with me. So I went to my Lady's, and of 
Mr. Townsend did borrow a very fine side- 
saddle for my wife, and so, after all things were 
ready, she and I took coach to the end of the 
towne towards Kingsland, and there got upon 
my horse, and she upon her pretty mare that 
I hired for her, and she rides very well. By 
the mare at one time falling, she got a fall, but 
no harm ; so we got to Ware, and there supped, 
and went to bed. 

1 8th. Up early, and begun our march: the 
way about Puckridge very bad, and my wife, 
in the very last dirty place of all, got a fall, 
but no hurt, though some dirt. At last, she 
begun, poor wretch, to be tired, and I to be 
angry at it, but I was to blame ; for she is a very 
good companion as long as she is well. In 



1 suitor 2 Two gondolas, presented to the King 
by the Duke of Venice. 



1 The manorial court under which Pepys held some 
of his copyhold estates. 



17: 



SAMUEL PEPYS 



the afternoon, we got to Cambridge, where 1 
left my wife at my cozen Angier's, while I went 
to Christ's College, and there found my brother 
in his chamber, and talked with him, and so to 
the barber's, and then to my wife again, and 
remounted for Impington, where my uncle 
received me and my wife very kindly. 

19th. Up early, and my father and I alone 
talked about our business, and then we all 
horsed away to Cambridge, where my father 
and I, having left my wife at the Beare, with 
my brother, went to Mr. Sedgewicke, the stew- 
ard of Gravely, and there talked with him, but 
could get little hopes from anything that he 
would tell us; but at last I did give him a fee, 
and then he was free to tell me what I asked, 
which was something, though not much com- 
fort. From thence to our horses, anil, with my 
wife, went and rode through Sturbridge fayre, 
but the fayre was almost done. Set out for 
Brampton, where we come in very good time. 

20th. Will Stankes and I set out in the morn- 
ing betimes for Gravely, where to an alehouse 
and drank, and then, going to the Court House, 
met my uncle Thomas and his son Thomas, 
with Bradly, the rogue that had betrayed us, 
and one Young, a cunning fellow, who guides 
them. I said little, till by and by that we come 
to the Court, which was a simple meeting of a 
company of country rogues, with the Steward, 
and two Fellows of Jesus College, that are 
lords of the towne; and I producing no sur- 
render, though I told them I was sure there is 
and must be one somewhere, they found my 
uncle Thomas heire at law, as he is; and so 
my uncle was admitted ami his son also in re- 
version. The father paid a year ami a half for 
his fine, and the son half a year, in all, 48/., 
besides about 3/. fees; so that I do believe the 
charges of his journevs, and what he gives those 
two rogues, and cither expenses herein, cannot 
be less than 70/., which will be a sad thing for 
him, if a surrender be found. After all was 
done, I openly wished them joy in it. 

21st. After dinner (there coming this morn- 
ing my aunt 1 lanes and her son from London, 
that is to live with my father), I rode to Hunt- 
ingdon, ami so to rlinchingbroke, where Mr. 
Barnwell showed me the condition of the house, 
which is yet very backward, and I fear will be 
very dark in the clovster when it is clone. 

jjd. (Lord's day.) To church, where we 
had common prayer, and a dull sermon by one 
Mr. Case, who vet 1 heard sing very well. 

23d. We took horse, and got early to Bald- 
wick, where there was a fair, and we put in, 



and eat a mouthful of porke, which they made 
us pay i<\d. for, which vexed me much. And 
so away to Stevenage, and staid till a shower 
was over, and so rode easily to Welling. We 
supped well, and had two beds in the room, 
and so lay single. 

24th. We rose, and set forth, but found a most 
sad alteration in the roade, by reason of last 
night's rains, they being now all dirty and 
washy, though not deep. So we rode easily 
through, and only drinking at Holloway, at 
the sign of a woman with cakes in one hand, 
and a pot of ale in the other, which did give 
good occasion of mirth, resembling her to the 
maid that served us, we got home very timely 
and well, and finding there all well, and letters 
from sea, that speak of my Lord's being well ; 
and his Action, though not considerable of any 
side, at Algiers. 

25th. Sir W. Pen told me that I need not 
fear any reflection upon my Lord for their ill 
success at Argier, for more could not be done. 
Meeting Sir R. Slingsby in St. Martin's Lane, 
he and I in his coach through the Mewes, 
which is the way that now all coaches are 
forced to go, because of a stop at Charing 
Crosse, by reason of digging of a drayne there 
to clear the streets. To my Lord Crewe's, and 
dined with him, where I was used with all im- 
aginable kindness both from him and her. 
And I sec that he is afraid my Lord's reputacon 
will a little suffer in common talk by this late 
successc; but there is no help for it now. 
The Queen of England, as she is now owned 
and called, I hear, doth keep open court, and 
distinct at Lisbone. To the Theatre, and saw 
"The Merry Wives of Windsor" ill done. 

26th. With my wife bycoach to the Theatre, 
to show her " King ami no King," it being very 
well done. 

27th. At noon, met my wife at the Ward- 
robe; and there dined, where we found Cap- 
tain Country, my little Captain that I loved, 
who carried me to the Sound, with some grapes 
and millons ' from my Lord at Lisbone, the 
first that ever I saw; but the grapes are rare 
things. In the afternoon comes Mr. Edward 
Montagu, by appointment this morning, to talk 
with my Lady and me about the provisions 
fit to be bought and sent to my Lord along with 
him. And told us, that we need not trouble 
ourselves how to buy them, for the King would 
pay for all, ami that he would take care to get 
them: which put my Lady and me into a great 

1 melons 



ROBERT SOUTH 



173 



deal of ease of mind. Here we stayed and 
supped too; and, after my wife had put up 
some of the grapes in a basket for to be sent to 
the King, we took coach and home, where we 
found a hamper of millons sent to me also. 

28th. Sir W. Pen and his daughter, and I 
and my wife, to the Theatre, and there saw 
"Father's own Son," ' a very good play, and 
the first time I ever saw it. 

29th. (Lord's day.) What at dinner and 
supper I drink, I know not how, of my own 
accord, so much wine, that I was even almost 
foxed, and my head ached all night; so home 
and to bed, without prayers, which I never did 
yet, since I come to the house, of a Sunday 
night : I being now so out of order that I durst 
not read prayers, for fear of being perceived by 
my servants in what case I was. 

ROBERT SOUTH (1634-1716) 

From A SERMON PREACHED ON MAY 9, 

1686 

OF THE FATAL IMPOSTURE AND FORCE 
OF WORDS 

The generality of mankind is wholly and 
absolutely governed by words and names; 
without; nay, for the most part, even against 
the knowledge men have of things. The 
multitude, or common rout, like a drove of 
sheep, or an herd of oxen, may be managed 
by any noise, or cry, which their drivers shall 
accustom them to. 

And, he who will set up for a skilful manager 
of the rabble, so long as they have but ears to 
hear, needs never inquire, whether they have 
any understanding whereby to judge; but with 
two or three popular, empty words, such as 
popery and superstition, right of the subject, 
liberty of conscience, Lord Jesus Christ well 
tuned and humoured; may whistle them 
backwards and forwards, upwards and down- 
wards, till he is weary; and get up upon their 
backs when he is so. 

As for the meaning of the word itself, that may 
shift for itself; and, as for the sense and reason 
of it, that has little or nothing to do here ; only 
let it sound full and round, and chime right to 
the humour, which is at present agog, (just 
as a big, long, rattling name is said to com- 
mand even adoration from a Spaniard,) and, 
no doubt, with this powerful, senseless engine 
the rabble-driver shall be able to carry all be- 

1 an old play, by an unknown author 



fore him, or to draw all after him, as he pleases. 
For, a plausible, insignificant word, in the mouth 
of an expert demagogue, is a dangerous and a 
dreadful weapon. 

You know, when Caesar's army mutinied, 
and grew troublesome, no argument from 
interest, or reason, could satisfy or appease 
them : but, as soon as he gave them the appel- 
lation of Quirites, the tumult was immediately 
hushed; and all were quiet and content, and 
took that one word in good payment for all. 
Such is the trivial slightness and levity of most 
minds. And indeed, take any passion of the 
soul of man, while it is predominant, and 
afloat, and, just in the critical height of it, nick 
it with some lucky, or unlucky word, and you 
may as certainly overrule into your own pur- 
pose, as a spark of fire, falling upon gunpowder, 
will infallibly blow it up. 

The truth is, he who shall duly consider 
these matters, will find that there is a certain 
bewitchery, or fascination in words, which makes 
them operate with a force beyond what we 
can naturally give an account of. For, would 
not a man think, ill deeds, and shrewd turns, 
should reach further, and strike deeper than 
ill words? And yet many instances might be 
given, in which men have much more easily 
pardoned ill things done, than ill things said 
against them: such a peculiar rancour and 
venom do they leave behind them in men's 
minds, and so much more poisonously and in- 
curably does the serpent bite with his tongue, 
than with his teeth. 

Nor are men prevailed upon at this odd, 
unaccountable rate, by bare words, only 
through a defect of knowledge; but sometimes 
also do they suffer themselves to be carried 
away with these puffs of wind, even contrary 
to knowledge and experience itself. For other- 
wise, how could men be brought to surrender 
up their reason, their interest, and their credit 
to flattery? Gross, fulsome, abusive flattery; 
indeed more abusive and reproachful upon a 
true estimate of things and persons, than the 
rudest scoffs, and the sharpest invectives. 
Yet so it is, that though men know themselves 
utterly void of those qualities and perfections, 
which the imprudent sycophant, at the same 
time, both ascribes to them, and in his sleeve 
laughs at them for believing; nay, though 
they know that the flatterer himself knows the 
falsehood of his own flatteries, yet they swallow 
the fallacious morsel, love the impostor, and 
with both arms hug the abuse ; and that to such 
a degree, that no offices of friendship, no real 



174 



ROBERT SOUTH 



services shall be able to lie in the balance 
against those luscious falsehoods, which Battery 
shall feed the mind of a/00/ in power with; the 
sweetness of the one infinitely overcomes the 
substance of the other. 

And therefore, you shall seldom sec, that such 

an one cares to have men of worth, honesty, 
and veracity about him; for, such persons 

cannot fall down and worship stocks ami 
stones, though they are placed never so 
high above them. Hut their yea is yea, and 
their nay, nay; and, they cannot admire a 
fox for his sincerity, a wolf for his generosity, 
nor an ass for his wit and ingenuity; and 
therefore can never be acceptable to those 
whose whole credit, interest, and advantage 
lies in their not appearing to the world, what 
they are really in themselves. None are, or 
can be welcome to such, but those who speak 
paint and wash ; for that is the thing they love; 
and, no wonder, since it is the thing they need. 

There is hardly any rank, order, or degree 
of men, but more or less have been captivated, 
and enslaved by words. It is a weakness, or 
rather a fate, which attends both high and low. 
The statesman, who holds the helm, as well as 
the peasant who holds the plough. So that if 
ever you find an ignoramus in place or power, 
and can have so little conscience, and so much 
Confidence, as to tell him to his face, that he 
has a wit and understanding above all the world 
beside; and that what his own reason cannot 
suggest to him, neither can the united reasons 
of all mankind put together; 1 dare undertake, 
that, as fulsome a dose as you give him, he 
shall readily take it down, and admit the com- 
mendation, though he cannot believe the thing: 
Hlanditiac eliam cum exclitduntur placent ; ' 
says Seneca. Tell him, that no history or 
antiquity can match his policies and his con- 
duct; and presently the sot (because he knows 
neither history, nor antiquity) shall begin to 
measure himself by himself, (which is the only 
sure way for him not to fall short) ; and so imme- 
diately amongst his outward admirers, and his 
inward despiscrs, vouched also bv a teste me- 
ipso, he steps forth -\\\ exact politician; and, 
by a wonderful, and new way of arguing, 
proves himself no fool, because, forsooth, the 
sycophant, who tells him so, is an egregious 
knave. 

Hut to give you a yet grosser instance of the 
force of words, and of the extreme variety of 
man's nature in being influenced by them, 

1 Flatter; pleases even when rejected. 



hardly shall you meet with any person, man or 
woman, so aged, or ill-favoured, but if you will 
venture to commend them for their comeliness; 
nay, and for their youth too; though lime out 
of mind is wrote upon every line of their face; 
yet they shall take it very well at your hands, 
and begin to think with themselves, that cer- 
tainly they have some perfections, which the 
generality of the world are not so happy as 
to he aware of. 

But now, are not these (think we) strange 
self delusions, ami yet attested by common 
experience, almost every day? But whence, 
in the meantime, can all this proceed, but from 
that besotting intoxication, which this verbal 
magic (as I may so call it) brings upon the 
mind of man? For, can anything in nature 
have a more certain, deep, and undeniable 
effect, than folly has upon man's mind, and age 
upon his body? Ami yet we see, that in both 
these, words are able to persuade men out of 
what they find and feel, to reverse the very 
impressions of sense, and to amuse men with 
fancies and paradoxes even in spite of nature, 
and experience. But, since it would be end- 
less to pursue all the particulars in which this 
humour shows itself; whosoever would have 
one full, lively, and complete view of an empty, 
shallow, self opinioncd grandee, surrounded by 
his Batterers, (like a choice dish of meat by 
a company of fellows commending, and devour- 
ing it at the same time), let him cast his eye 
upon Ahab in the midst of his false Prophets, 
1 Kings 22. Where we have them all with one 
voice forgiving him a cast of their court proph- 
ecy, and sending him, in a compliment, to 
be knocked on the head at Ramoth Ciilead. 
But, says Jehoshaphat, (who smelt the parasite 
through the prophet) in the 7th verse. Is 
there not a Prophet of the Lord besides, that we 
may inquire of him? Why yes, says Ahab, 
there is yet one man by whom we may inquire 
of the Lord; but I hale him, for he doth not 
prophesy good concerning me, but evil. Ah ! 
that was his crime; the poor man was so good 
a subject, and so /><;</ a courtier, as to venture 
to serve, and save his Prince, whether he would 
or no; for, it seems, to give Ahab such warning, 
as might infallibly have prevented his destruc- 
tion, was esteemed by him evil, ami to push him 
on headlong into it, because he was fond of 
it, was accounted good. These were his new 
measures of ;;<><>(/ anil evil. Ami therefore, 
those who knew how to make their court better, 
(as the word is) tell him a bold lie in God's 
name, and therewith sent him packing to his 



THE FATAL IMPOSTURE AND FORCE OF WORDS 



175 



certain doom ; thus calling evil good at the cost 
of their Prince's crown, and his life too. But 
what cared they? they knew that it would 
please, and that was enough for them; there 
being always a sort of men in the world, (whom 
others have an interest to serve by,) who had 
rather a great deal be pleased, than be safe. 
Strike them under the fifth rib; provided at 
the same time you kiss them too, as Joab served 
Abner, and you may both destroy and oblige 
them with the same blow. 

Accordingly in the 30th of Isaiah we find 
some arrived to that pitch of sottishness, and 
so much in love with their own ruin, as to own 



plainly and roundly what they would be at; 
in the 10th verse; Prophesy not unto us, say 
they, right things, but prophesy to us smooth 
things. As if they had said, do but oil the razor 
for us, and let us alone to cut our own throats. 
Such an enchantment is there in words; and so 
fine a thing does it seem to some, to be ruined 
plausibly, and to be ushered to their destruc- 
tion with panegyric and acclamation ; a shame- 
ful, though irrefragable argument of the absurd 
empire and usurpation of words over things; 
and, that the greatest affairs, and most impor- 
tant interests of the world, are carried on by 
things, not as they are, but as they are called. 



rin«: mr.nTKKNTii ckntiiuy 



DANIEL DEFOE (1661 ' [731) 

1 , an lilt' 1 hi. \i>\ EN 11 R] S, wi' 

PIK Mil--. ( >!•' I III I \\1. 11 ■ 

CAPTAIN SING] E rON 

We * 1 uised new two years In those 
chief!) upon the Spaniards: not thai we made 
any difficult} oi taking English ships, oi Dutch, 
oi in in h, ii thej 1 .niir in oui \\.i\ , and 
particularly, Captain Wilmol attacked b Nev 
England snip bound from the Madeiras to 
|. mi. in .1, and anothei bound from \v« York 
to Bai bados, w tth pro> isions , w hit h last was 
.1 \. 1 j happ) supply to us Bui the reason 
uli\ «.' meddled as little with English vessels 
.1 . we > ould, was, first, bet ause, ii the) were 
ships "i an) fon e, we were sure ol more re 
sistance from them; and, secondly, because we 
found the English ships had less boot) when 
taken, t<>i the Spaniards generally had money 
on board, and thai was whal we best knew 
wii.ii to do with Captain Wilmol was, in 
deed, more partii ularl) 1 ruel when he took any 
English vessel, thai tney might not too soon 
have advice oi him in England; and so the 
men oi waj have orders to look out foi him 
Bui this pari 1 burj in silence foi the present 

\\ e mi reascd oui sto< k in these two years 
considerably, having taken ck\iw pw> 
eighl hi one vessel, and too.000 in another; 
and being thus first grown rich, we resolved to 
be strong too, foi we had taken .1 brigantine 
built at Virginia, an excellent ses boat, and .< 
good sailer, and able to carr) twelve guns: 
.mil .1 large Spanish frigate built ship, thai sailed 
incomparably well also, and which afterwards, 
i>\ the help oi good carpenters, we fitted up to 
carr) twent) eighl guns \ml now we wanted 
more hands, so we put awaj foi the Bay of 
Campeachy, no! doubting we should ship .is 
man) men there as we pleased; and so we did 

1 lere we sold the sloop thai 1 w as in ; and 
Captain Wilmol keeping his own ship, I took 
the command of the Spanish frigate as captain, 
.mil mj comrade Harris as eldest lieutenant, 
and .1 bold enterprising fellow he was, .is any 
the world afforded One culverdine was pu1 



Into the brigantine, so thai we were now three 
stout slups, well manned, and victualled for 
twelve months; foi we had taken two or three 
sloops from New England and New York, 
laden with flour, peas, and barrelled beef and 
pork, going foi famaica and Barbados; and 
tin more beei we wenl on shore on the island of 
Cuba, where we k il u« 1 as man) black cattle as 
we pleased, though we had very little sail to 
(Hie them, 

( >ut oi .ill the pn i". we took here we took 
theii powdei and bullet, thru small-arms and 
cutlasses; and as foi theii men, we always 
took the surgeon .mil the carpenter, as prisons 
who were 01 particulai use to us upon many 
occasions; nor were they always unwilling to 
go with us, though foi theii own security, in 
case ''t accidents, the) might easil) pretend 
they were carried awa) b) force; of which I 
shall give a pleasant account in the course of 
my other expeditions 

We had one ver) merry fellovi here, 1 
Quaker, whose name was William Walters, 
whom we took out of a sloop bound from Penn 
sylvan ia to Barbados He was .1 surgeon, 
and they called him doctoi ; but he was not 
employed in the sloop as .1 surgeon, but was 
going to Barbados to gel .1 berth, as the sailors 
call it However, he had all his surgeon's 
chests on board, and we iu.nK' him go with 
us, .mil take all ins implements with him He 
was .1 comic fellow indeed, a man oi ver) good 
solid sense, and an excellent surgeon; but, 
wh.u was worth all, very good humoured and 
pleasant in his conversation, and a bold, stout, 
brave fellow too, as an) we had among us. 

I found William, .is I thought, not \ ( tv 

averse to go along with us, and yet resolved to 
do 11 so that 11 might be apparent he was taken 
away by force, and to tins purpose he comes to 
me "Friend," says he, "thou sayest I must 
go with thee, and il is not in my powei to resist 
thee it l would; but l desire thou will oblige 
tlie master of the sloop which 1 am on board to 
certif) unili't his hand, that 1 was taken away 
b) force and against my will " Ami this he 
said with so much satisfaction in Ins tare, that 



THE LIFE, ADVENTURES, AND PIRACIES OF CAPTAIN SINGLETON r.77 



I (iniiii u<ii imi understand him, "Ay, ay," 
says i, " whether ii be against youi will or no, 
l 'M make imii and all the men give you a cei 
tificate <>f it, or I'll take them all along with us, 
and keep them lill they do." So I drew up a 
certificate myself, wherein l wrote thai he was 
taken away by main force, as a prisoner, by a 
pirate ship) thai they carried away his chest 
ami instruments first, ami then bound his 
hands behind him ami forced him into their 
boat: ami this was signed l>y the mastei ami 
all his men, 

Accordingly l fell a-swearing al him, ami 
called i" my men i<> tie his hands behind him, 
ami so we pul him into our boat ami carried 
linn away, When l had him on board, I 
called liiin in me. "Now, friend," says I, 
"l have brought you away by force, ii is true, 
Imi i .nil imi <ii the opinion I have broughl you 
away so much against your will as they imagine, 

('nine," says I, yOU will l>c a useful man In US, 

ami you shall have very good usagi i igus. 

So I unbound his hands, and first ordered all 
things that belonged to him to be restored to 
him, ami Mm i aptain gave him a dram. 

"Thou hast deall friendly by me," says he, 
"ami I will in- plain with thee, whether I came 
willingly to thee or not. I shall male myself 
as useful i<> thee a", I < an, imi ihoii knowesl il 
is not my business i<» meddle when thou art 
io fight.'' " No, no," says the i aptain, "bul 
you may meddle a little when we share ili<' 
money." "Those things are useful to furnish 

a surgeon's I hi St," say:. William, ami smiled, 

" Imi I shall lie moderate." 

In short, William \v;i:. a mOSt aj'iceal >!<• 

companion; I mi In- had the better of us in i his 
part, thai d we were taken we were sun- to be 
hanged, and he was sure to escape; and he 

knew il well enoii'di. l!ul, in shoil, he \v;i , a 
Sprightly fellow, and lillei Io Ik <;i|ilam ihan 
any ol US, I shall have often an oc i .im'oii Io 

speak oi him in the resl of I he Btoi y 

< >ur cruising so long in thesi Beas began now 
io in- :,o well known, that nol in England only, 
Imi in I'L'iMi e and Spain, a< i ounts had been 
made publit of our adventures, and mam sto 
in , i. iid how we murdered the people in cold 
Mood, i ying them bai k to bat I , and throw 

[ng I hem Into I he sea ; one half of whic h, how 

ever, was nol true, thougl ire was done than 

is hi to Bpeak <>i here. 

The consequence of this, however, was, thai 
several English men-oi war were seni to the 
We i i ndies, and were pai I i' ulai ly inst rui ted 
to cruise in the Bay oi Mexico, and the Gulf 



of Florida, ami among the Bahama [stands, if 

poa ii'le, to attai k us, We wen nol bo ignoranl 
oi i Imi)';, as noi to expc< i this, aiit i bo long a 

slay in thai pari oi the World; Imi the hisl 
i ii I. mi act oiinl we hail ol Ihein w.i . ;il I Ion 

duras, when b vessel coming in from famaica 
i. iid iis thai two English men-oi wai were 
( oming direi tly from famaica thithei in qui it 

of IIS. WC Wile indeed a:; ll wele end i;i yei I, 
and COUld nol have made die Ii i I shift tO have 

gol oil, if they had e directly to us: but, 

as ii happened, s ibody had ml id them 

thai we were in i he Bay oi ( !ampca< hy, ami 
they weni directly thither, by which we were 

mil only free Oi I hem, Imi weie BO huh Ii Io I he 

u [ndward of them, thai they < ould not make 
any attempt upon us, though the) had known 
we were there. 

We took this advantage, ami stood away foi 
Carthagena, ami from thence with grcal dim 

i nil y heal il UP at a dlslam e I nndei I lie 

shore for St. Mai i ha, i ill we i ; • io i he Dutch 

island oi < luracoa, ami from thence to the island 
oi Tobago, which, as before, was our rendcz 
\.iu, , wlm h, being a desei ted, uninhabited 

island, we al the same lime made n.se ol loi ;i re 

i real. I [ere the « aptain oi the la iganl me died, 
ami Captain Harris, at that time my lieuten 
ant, look the < ommand oi i he in iganl ine 
Here we (aim- to a resolution in go away 

Io Ihe < oaSl ol Brazil, and hoin Ihem e Io ihe 

( 'ape of ( iood Hope, and so foi the East [ndies; 

bul ( ■ 1 1 > 1 . 1 1 r i I lai i is, as I have said, I g now 

captain oi I he bi iganl ine, alleged thai his ship 
was too small foi so long s voyage, but that, if 
Captain Wilmot would consent, he would take 

the hazard of annl her < I 1 1 1 .< , and he would 

follow us in the first ship he could take So we 
appointed our rendezvous i<> be al Madaga n ar, 
which was done by my recommendation oi the 
place, ami the plenty of provisions to be had 
there 

Accordingly, he went away fn is in an evil 

horn; for, instead oi tal ing a ship to follow 
us, he was taken, as I heard afterwards, by an 

English man ol wai, and being laid i IS, 

(lied of mere g] nl . 1 1 1 < I ani'ei lie Ion- he < .one |., 

England His lieutenant, I have heard, was, 
afterwards executed in England for a pirate; 
and this was the end of the man who first broughl 
me into this unhappy trade. 

We parted from Tobago three days after, 
bending oui course for the i oasi oi Brazil, 
Imi had nol been al Bea above twenl \ foui 

i ., when we were separated by a tei i iblc 

storm, which held three days, with very little 



i?8 



DANIEL DEFOE 



abatement or intermission. In this juncture 
Captain Wilmot happened, unluckily, to be on 
board my ship, to his great mortification; for 

we not only lost sight of his ship, but never saw 
lur more till we came to Madagascar, where 
she was cast away. In short, after having 
in this tempest lost our fore-topmast, we were 
forced to put back to the isle of Tobago for 
shelter, and to repair OUT damage, which brought 
us all very near our destruction. 

We were no sooner on shore here, and all 
very busy looking out for a piece of timber for 
a topmast, but we perceived standing in for the 
shore an English man-of-war of thirty-six guns. 
It was a great surprise to us indeed, because we 
were disabled so much; but, to our great good 
fortune, we lav pretty snug and close among 
the high rocks, and the man of war did not see 
us, but stood off again upon his cruise. So we 
only observed which way she went, and at night, 
leaving our work, resolved to stand off to sea, 
Steering the contrary way from that which we 
observed she went; and this, we found, had 
the desired success, for we saw him no more. 
We had gotten an old mizzen-topmast on 
hoard, which made us a jury fore-topmast for 
the present; and so we stood away for the isle 
of Trinidad, where, though there were Span- 
iards on shore, yet we landed some men with 
our boat, and cut a very good piece of fir to 
make us a new topmast, which we got fitted 
up effectually; and also we got some cattle 
here to eke out our provisions; and calling a 
council of war among ourselves, we resolved to 
quit those seas for the present, and steer away 
for the coast of Brazil. 

The first thing we attempted here was only 
getting fresh water, but we learned that there 
lay the Portuguese fleet at the bay of All Saints, 
bound for Lisbon, ready to sail, and only waited 
for a fair wind. This made us lie by, wishing 
to see them put to sea, and, accordingly as they 
were with or without convoy, to attack or avoid 
them. 

It sprung up a fresh gale in the evening at 
S.W. by W., which, being fair for the Portugal 
fleet, and the weather pleasant and agreeable, 
we heard the signal given to unmoor, and 
running in under the island of Si — , we hauled 
our mainsail and foresail up in the brails, 
lowered the topsail upon the cap, and clewed 
them up, that we might lie as snug as we could, 
expecting their coming out, and the next morn- 
ing saw the whole fleet come mil accordingly, 
but not at all to our satisfaction, for tliev con- 
sisted of twenty-six sail, and most of them ships 



of force, as well as burthen, both merchant- 
men and men-of-war; so, seeing there was no 
meddling, we lay still where we were also, till 
the ileet was out of sight, and then stood off 
and on, in hopes of meeting with further 
purchase. 

It was not long before we saw a sail, and 
immediately gave her chase; but she proved 
an excellent sailer, and, standing out to sea, we 
saw plainly she trusted to her heels — that is to 
say, to her sails. However, as we were a clean 
ship, we gained upon her, though slowly, and 
had we had a day before us, we should certainly 
have come up with her; but it grew dark apace, 
and in that case we knew we should lose sight 
of her. 

Our merry Quaker, perceiving us to crowd 
still after her in the dark, wherein we could not 
see which way she went, came very dryly to 
me. "Friend Singleton," says he, "dost thee 
know what we are a-doing?" Says I, "Yes; 
why, we are chasing yon ship, are we not?" 
"And how dost thou know that?" said he, 
very gravely still. "Nay, that's true," says 
I again; "we cannot be sure." "Yes, friend," 
says he, "I think we may be sure that we are 
running away from her, not chasing her. I 
am afraid," adds he, "thou art turned Quaker, 
and hast resolved not to use the hand of power, 
or art a coward, and art (lying from thy enemy." 

"What do you mean?" says I (I think I 
swore at him). "What do you sneer at now? 
You have always one dry rub or another to give 
us." 

"Nay," says he, "it is plain enough the ship 
stood off to sea due east, on purpose to lose us, 
and thou mavest be sure her business does not 
lie that way; for what should she do at the 
coast of Africa in this latitude, which should 
be as far south as Congo or Angola? Put as 
soon as it is dark, that we would lose sight of 
her, she will tack and stand away west again 
for the Brazil coast and for the bay, where thou 
knowest she was going before; and are we not, 
then, running away from her? I am grcatlv 
in hopes, friend," says the dry, gibing creature, 
"thou wilt turn Quaker, for I see thou art not 
for lighting." 

"Very well, William," says I; "then I shall 
make an excellent pirate." However, William 
was in the right, and I apprehended what he 
meant immediately; and Captain Wilmot, who 
lav very sick in his cabin, overhearing us, un- 
derstood him as well as I, and called out to 
me that William was right, ami it was our best 
way to change our course, and stand away for 



THE LIFE, ADVENTURES, AND PIRACIES OF CAPTAIN SINGLETON 179 



the bay, where it was ten to one but we should 
snap her in the morning. 

Accordingly we went about-ship, got our lar- 
board tacks on board, set the top-gallant sails, 
and crowded for the bay of All Saints, where 
we came to an anchor early in the morning, 
just out of gunshot of the forts; we furled our 
sails with rope-yarns, that we might haul home 
the sheets without going up to loose them, and, 
lowering our main and foreyards, looked just 
as if we had lain there a good while. 

In two hours afterwards we saw our game 
standing in for the bay with all the sail she could 
make, and she came innocently into our very 
mouths, for we lay still till we saw her almost 
within gunshot, when, our foremost gears being 
stretched fore and aft, we first ran up our yards, 
and then hauled home the topsail sheets, the 
rope-yarns that furled them giving way of 
themselves; the sails were set in a few minutes; 
at the same time slipping our cable, we came 
upon her before she could get under way upon 
the other tack. They were so surprised that 
they made little or no resistance, but struck 
after the first broadside. 

We were considering what to do with her, 
when William came to me. "Hark thee, 
friend," says he, "thou hast made a fine piece 
of work of it now, hast thou not, to borrow thy 
neighbour's ship here just at thy neighbour's 
door, and never ask him leave? Now, dost 
thou not think there are some men-of-war in 
the port? Thou hast given them the alarm 
sufficiently; thou wilt have them upon thy 
back before night, depend upon it, to ask thee 
wherefore thou didst so." 

"Truly, William," said I, "for aught I know, 
that may be true; what, then, shall we do 
next?" Says he, "Thou hast but two things 
to do; either to go in and take all the rest, or 
else get thee gone before they come out and take 
thee; for I see they are hoisting a topmast to 
yon great ship, in order to put to sea immedi- 
ately, and they won't be long before they come to 
talk with thee, and what wilt thou say to them 
when they ask thee why thou borrowedst their 
ship without leave?" 

As William said, so it was. We could see by 
our glasses they were all in a hurry, manning 
and fitting some sloops they had there, and a 
large man-of-war, and it was plain they would 
soon be with us. But we were not at a loss what 
to do; we found the ship we had taken was la- 
den with nothing considerable for our purpose, 
except some cocoa, some sugar, and twenty bar- 
rels of flour; the rest of her cargo was hides; so 



we took out all we thought fit for our turn, and, 
among the rest, all her ammunition, great shot, 
and small arms, and turned her off. We also 
took a cable and three anchors she had, which 
were for our purpose, and some of her sails. 
She had enough left just to carry her into port, 
and that was all. 

Having done this, we stood on upon the 
Brazil coast, southward, till we came to the 
mouth of the river Janeiro. But as we had 
two days the wind blowing hard at S.E. and 
S.S.E., we were obliged to come to an anchor 
under a little island, and wait for a wind. In 
this time the Portuguese had, it seems, given 
notice over land to the governor there, that a 
pirate was upon the coast; so that, when we 
came in view of the port, we saw two men-of- 
war riding just without the bar, whereof one, 
we found, was getting under sail with all pos- 
sible speed, having slipped her cable on pur- 
pose to speak with us; the other was not so 
forward, but was preparing to follow. In 
less than an hour they stood both fair after us, 
with all the sail they could make. 

Had not the night come on, William's words 
had been made good ; they would certainly have 
asked us the question what we did there, for 
we found the foremost ship gained upon us, 
especially upon one tack, for we plied away 
from them to windward ; but in the dark losing 
sight of them, we resolved to change our course 
and stand away directly for sea, not doubting 
that we should lose them in the night. 

Whether the Portuguese commander guessed 
we would do so or no, I know not; but in the 
morning, when the daylight appeared, instead 
of having lost him, we found him in chase of 
us about a league astern; only, to our great 
good fortune, we could see but one of the two. 
However, this one was a great ship, carried 
six-and-forty guns, and an admirable sailer, as 
appeared by her outsailing us; for our ship was 
an excellent sailer too, as I have said before. 

When I found this, I easily saw there was no 
remedy, but we must engage; and as we knew 
we could expect no quarter from these scoun- 
drels the Portuguese, a nation I had an original 
aversion to, I let Captain Wilmot know how it 
was. The captain, sick as he was, jumped 
up in the cabin, and would be led out upon the 
deck (for he was very weak) to see how it was. 
"Well," says he, "we'll fight them!" 

Our men were all in good heart before, but 
to see the captain so brisk, who had lain ill 
of a calenture ten or eleven days, gave them 
double courage, and they went all hands to 



iS - 



DANIEL DEFOE 



work to make a clear ship and be ready Will 
iam, the Quaker, cornea to me with .1 kind of 
;i smile "Friend," says he, "whal does yon 
ship follow us For?" "Why," Bays I, "to 
fighl us, you may be suit." Well, says he, 
"and will he come up with us, dost thou think 
"Yes," said I, "yOU sec she will" "Why, 
then, friend," says the dry wretch, "why dost 
thou run from her still, when thou sees! she 
will overtake thee? Will it be bettei for us 
to be ovei taken farther off than here " 
"Much as one for that," says t; "why, whal 
would you have us do '" " 1 >o I " says he; 
"let us not give the poor man more trouble 
than needs must; lei us stay for him and hear 
what he has to say to us." "He will talk to 
us iii powder and ball," said 1. "Very well, 
then," says he, " if thai be his country language, 
we must talk to him in the same, must we not ? 
or else liow shall he understand us?" "Ven 
well, William," says I, "we understand you. 
\iul the captain, as ill as he was, called to me. 
"William's right again," says he; "as good 
here as a league farther." So he gives a word 
oi command, "Haul up the mainsail; we'll 
shot ten sail foi him 

Accordingly we shortened sail, and as we 
expected hei upon our lee side, we being then 
upon oui starboard tack, brought eighteen >>f 
kui guns to the larboard side, resolving to give 
him a broadside thai should warm him. It 
was about half-an-hour before he came u|> 
with us, all which time we luffed up, thai we 
might keep the wind of liim, l>\ which he was 
obliged to run up under our lee, as we designed 
him; when we go1 him upon our quarter, we 
edged down, and received the fire of five or 
m\ oi his guns Bj this time you ma) be sure 
all kui hands were al their quarters, so we 
clapped our helm haul a weather, lei go the 
lee-braces of the main topsail, and laid it a back 
and so out ship fell athwart the Portuguese 
ship's liawsr; thru we immediately poured in 
our broadside, raking them fore and aft, and 
killed them a greal many men. 

t'lu- Portuguese, we could see, were in the 
utmosl confusion; and not being aware of our 
design, their ship having fresh way, ran their 

boy spi it into the fore part of our main shrouds, 

as that they could no1 easily gel clear of us, 

and BO We lay locked alter that maniUT. The 

enemy could not bring above five or si\ guns, 

besides thou small arms, to bear upon us, while 

we played our whole broadside upon him. 

In the middle of the heat of this fight, as I 

was very busy upon the quarter deck, the cap 



tain calls to me, for he never stirred from us, 
"What the devil is friend William a doing 
yonder.'" savs the captain; "has he anv 
business upon deck?" 1 Stepped forward, and 
there was friend William, with two or three 
stout fellows, la&hing the ship's bowsprit fast 
to our main masts, for fear thev should gel 
away from us; and every now and then he 
pulled a bottle out of Ins pocket, and gave the 
men a dram to encourage them. The shot 
flew about his ears as thick as may he supposed 

in such an action, where the Portuguese, to 

give them their due, foughl verv l>riskl\, be 

Qeving al firsl thev were sun- of their game, 
and trusting to their superiority; bul there was 

William, as composed, and in as perfect Iran 
quillity as to danger, as if he had been over a 

bowl of punch, only verj busy securing the 

matter, that a ship of forty si\ guns should 
not run awav from a ship oi eight and 

twenty 

This work was too hot to hold long; our men 
behaved bravely: our gunner, a gallant man, 
shouted below, pouring in his shot at such a 
rate, that the Portuguese began to slacken their 
lire; we had dismounted several of their guns 
by tiring in at their forecastle, and raking them, 
as 1 said, fore and aft. Presently comes Will- 
iam up to me. " Friend," savs he, verv calmly, 

"what dost thou mean ' Why dost thou not 
visit tin neighbour in the ship, tin- door being 
open for dice .'" 1 understood him immediately, 
for our guns had so lorn their hull, thai we had 
beat two port holes into one, and the bulk 
head of their Steerage was splil lo pieces, so 
(hat they could not retire to their close quarters; 

so l gave the word immediately to board them. 

Our Second lieutenant, with about thirty men, 
entered in an instant over the forecastle, fol- 
lowed by some more with the boatswain, and 
Cutting in pieces about tvventv live men that 
thev found upon the deck, and then throwing 
Some grenadoes into the steerage, thev entered 
there also; upon which the Portuguese cried 
quarter presently, and we mastered the ship. 
Contrary indeed to our own expectation; for 
we would have compounded with them if thev 
would have sheered oil": bul laving them 
athwart the hawse at first, and following our 
lire furiously, without giving them anv time to gel 
clear of us and work their ship; by this means, 
though thev had six and forty guns, thev wen 
not able to light above live or six, as 1 said 

above, for we beat them immediately from their 

guns in the forecastle, ami killed them abun 
dance of men between decks, so thai when we 



THE LIFE. ADVENTURES, AND PIRACIES OF ('ATTAIN SINGLETON [8] 



entered they had hardly found men enough i<> 
right us hand to hand upon their deck. 

The surprise of joy i<> hear the Portuguese 
cry quarter, and see their ancient struck, was 
bo great i<> our captain, who, as I have said, 
was reduced very weak wiili a high fever, 
that ii gave him new life. Nature conquered 
the distemper, and the fever abated that very 
night; so that in two <>r three days he was 
sensibly better, Ids strength began to come, and 
he was a I ilc io give Ids orders effect ually in every 
thing thai was material, and in about ten days 
was entirely well and about Hie ship. 

In the meantime I look possession oi the 
Portuguese man-of-war; and Captain Wilmot 
made me, or rather I made myself, captain of 
her for the present. About thirty of their sea 

nun took service with US, Some of which were 

French, some Genoese; and we set the rest on 
shore the nexl day on a little island on the coast 

of Brazil, except some wounded men, who were 

iidi in a condition to be removed, and whom 

we were lionnd Io keep on I >oa id ; lull we had 

an occasion afterwards to dispose oi them al 
the Cape, where, at their own request, we set 
them on shore. 
Captain Wilmot, as soon as the ship was 

taken, and the prisoners slowed, was for 

standing in for the river [aneiro again, nol 
doubting l>m we should meel with the other 
man of war, who, noi having been able to find 

us, and having lost the company of her com 

rade, would certainly be relumed, and might 
be surprised by the ship we had taken, if we 

(airied Portuguese colours; and our men were 
all for Lt. 

Hui our friend William gave us better counsel, 
for he came to me, " Friend," says he, " I under 
stand the captain is for Bailing back to the Rio 
[aneiro, in hopes to meet with the other ship 
that was in chase of thee yesterday. Is it 

true, dost thou intend it? "Why, yes," 
Bays I, "William, pray why nol:'" "Nay," 

says he, "thou mayest do so if ihou wilt." 
"Well, I know thai too, William," said I, 
"hui the captain is a man will be ruled by rea 

son; what have you Io say to it?" "Why," 

says William gravely, "I only ask what is Ihy 
business, and the business of all the people 
thou hast with thee? Is ii noi to get money?" 

"Yes, William, il is so, in our houesl way." 
"And woiildesl Ihou," says he, "ralher have 

money wiihoui fighting, <>r fighting without 

money? I mean which woiildesl ihou have hy 
Choice, suppose il Io he lefl Io thee?" "<) 
William," says I, "the id.. I of the tWO, Io be 



sure." "Why, then," says he, "what great 
gain has! thou made of the prize thou hast 
taken now, though it hascosl the lives of thir 
teen of thy nun, besides some hurt? tt is true 

thou hast gol the ship and some prisoners; 
lull Ihou woiildesl have had twice (he booty 
in a mere haul ship, wilh nol one quarter of the 

fighting; and how dosi thou know either what 

lone oi what number Of men may he in the 
Other ship, and whal loss I In hi mayest suffer, 
and what gain il shall he to thee il ihou lake 

her? I think, indeed, ihou mayest much better 

let her alone." 

"Why, William, il is line," said I, "and I'll 

go tell the captain what your opinion is, ami 
In He' you word whai he says." Accordingly 

in I weiil Io the ( a pi a ill and I old him William's 
reasons; and (he caplain was of his mind, I hat 
ton business was indeed fighting when we could 
nol help il, lull that our main affair was money, 
ami that wilh as few Mows as we could. So 
thai adventure was laid aside, and we slood 

along shore again south for the river De la 
Plata, expecting some purchase thereabouts; 

especially we had our eyes upon some oi the 
Spanish ships from Buenos Ayres, which are 
generally very rich ill silver, and one such prize 
would have done our husiness. We plied 
alioul here, in ihe latitude of south, for near 
a month, and nothing Offered; and here we 

began to consult whal we should do next, 

loi we had Come Io no resolution yet. Indeed, 
my design was always for the (ape de Bona 
Speranza, and so Io Ihe EaSl Indies. I had 
heard some flaming slories of Caplain Avery, 
and Ihe line things he had done in ihe Indies, 
which were doiihled and doubled, even len 

thousand fold; and from taking a greal prize 

in Ihe Bay of Bengal, where he tool, a lady, 

said io he the Great Mogul's daughter, with a 
greal quantity of jewels about her, we had a 
story told us, thai he took a Moj^ul ship, so the 

foolish sailors called il, laden wit h -diamonds. 
I would fain have had friend William's 
advice Whither we should go, hut he always 
pill il off wilh some quaking quibble or other. 
Iii short, he did nol care for directing us mil he i j 
whether he made a piece of conscience ol il, 
or whether he did nol care to veiilure having 
il come against hini afterwards or no, this I 
know nol; hut we concluded al lasl without 

him. 

We were, however, prelly Ion) 1 ; ill resolving, 
and hankered alioul ihe Rio de la Plata a long 

time. Ai last we spied a sail to windward, ana 

it was such a sail as 1 helieve had nol keen 



182 



DANIEL DEFOE 



seen in that part of the world a great while. 
It wanted not that we should give it chase, for 
it stood directly towards us, as well as they that 
steered could make it ; and even that was more 
accident of weather than anything else, for if 
the wind had chopped about anywhere they 
must have gone with it. I leave any man that 
is a sailor, or understands anything of a ship, 
to judge what a figure this ship made when we 
first saw her, and what we could imagine was 
the matter with her. Her maintop-mast was 
come by the board about six foot above the 
cap, and fell forward, the head of the topgallant- 
mast hanging in the fore-shrouds by the stay; 
at the same time the parrel of the mizzen- 
topsail-yard by some accident giving way, the 
mizzen-topsail-braces (the standing part of 
which being fast to the main-topsail shrouds) 
brought the mizzen-topsail, yard and all, 
down with it, which spread over part of 
the quarter-deck like an awning; the fore- 
topsail was hoisted up two-thirds of the mast, 
but the sheets were flown; the fore-yard was 
lowered down upon the forecastle, the sail loose, 
and part of it hanging overboard. In this 
manner she came down upon us with the 
wind quartering. In a word, the figure the 
whole ship made was the most confounding 
to men that understood the sea that ever was 
seen. She had no boat, neither had she any 
colours out. 

When we came near to her, we fired a gun 
to bring her to. She took no notice of it, nor 
of us, but came on just as she did before. We 
fired again, but it was all one. At length we 
came within pistol-shot of one another, but 
nobody answered nor appeared; so we began 
to think that it was a ship gone ashore some- 
where in distress, and the men having forsaken 
her, the high tide had floated her off to sea. 
Coming nearer to her, we ran up alongside of 
her so close that we could hear a noise within 
her, and see the motion of several people 
through her ports. 

Upon this we manned out two boats full of 
men, and very well armed, and ordered them 
to board her at the same minute, as near as 
they could, and to enter one at her fore-chains 
on the one side, and the other amidships on the 
other side. As soon as they came to the ship's 
side, a surprising multitude of black sailors, 
such as they were, appeared upon deck, and, 
in short, terrified our men so much that the 
boat which was to enter her men in the waist 
stood off again, and durst not board her; and 
the men that entered out of the other boat, 



finding the first boat, as they thought, beaten 
off, and seeing the ship full of men, jumped 
all back again into their boat, and put off, not 
knowing what the matter was. Upon this we 
prepared to pour in a broadside upon her; but 
our friend William set us to rights again here; 
for it seems he guessed how it was sooner than 
we did, and coming up to me (for it was our 
ship that came up with her), "Friend," says 
he, "I am of opinion that thou art wrong in 
this matter, and thy men have been wrong also 
in their conduct. I'll tell thee how thou shalt 
take this ship, without making use of those 
things called guns." "How can that be, 
William?" said I. "Why," said he, "thou 
mayest take her with thy helm; thou seest 
they keep no steerage, and thou seest the con- 
dition they are in ; board her with thy ship upon 
her lee quarter, and so enter her from the ship. 
I am persuaded thou wilt take her without 
fighting, for there is some mischief has befallen 
the ship, which we know nothing of." 

In a word, it being a smooth sea, and little 
wind, I took his advice, and laid her aboard. 
Immediately our men entered the ship, where 
we found a large ship, with upwards of 600 
negroes, men and women, boys and girls, and 
not one Christian or white man on board. 

I was struck with horror at the sight; for 
immediately I concluded, as was partly the case, 
that these black devils had got loose, had mur- 
dered all the white men, and thrown them 
into the sea; and I had no sooner told my 
mind to the men, but the thought so enraged 
them that I had much ado to keep my men 
from cutting them all in pieces. But William, 
with many persuasions, prevailed upon them, 
by telling them that it was nothing but what, if 
they were in the negroes' condition, they would 
do if they could; and that the negroes had 
really the highest injustice done them, to be 
sold for slaves without their consent ; and that 
the law of nature dictated it to them; that 
they ought not to kill them, and that it would 
be wilful murder to do it. 

This prevailed with them, and cooled their 
first heat; so they only knocked down twenty 
or thirty of them, and the rest ran all down 
between decks to their first places, believing, 
as we fancied, that we were their first masters 
come again. 

It was a most unaccountable difficulty we 
had next ; for we could not make them under- 
stand one word we said, nor could we under- 
stand one word ourselves that they said. We 
endeavoured by signs to ask them whence 



THE LIFE, ADVENTURES, AND PIRACIES OF CAPTAIN SINGLETON 183 



they came; but they could make nothing of it. 
We pointed to the great cabin, to the round- 
house, to the cook-room, then to our faces, to 
ask if they had no white men on board, and 
where they were gone; but they could not 
understand what we meant. On the other 
hand, they pointed to our boat and to their 
ship, asking questions as well as they could, 
and said a thousand things, and expressed 
themselves with great earnestness; but we 
could not understand a word of it all, or know 
what they meant by any of their signs. 

We knew very well they must have been 
taken on board the ship as slaves, and that it 
must be by some European people too. We 
could easily see that the ship was a Dutch- 
built ship, but very much altered, having 
been built upon, and, as we supposed, in France ; 
for we found two or three French books on board, 
and afterwards we found clothes, linen, lace, 
some old shoes, and several other things. We 
found among the provisions some barrels of 
Irish beef, some Newfoundland fish, and 
several other evidences that there had been 
Christians on board, but saw no remains of 
them. We found not a sword, gun, pistol, or 
weapon of any kind, except some cutlasses; 
and the negroes had hid them below where they 
lay. We asked them what was become of all 
the small arms, pointing to our own and to the 
places where those belonging to the ship had 
hung. One of the negroes understood me 
presently, and beckoned to me to come upon 
the deck, where, taking my fuzee, which I 
never let go out of my hand for some time after 
we had mastered the ship — I say, offering to 
take hold of it, he made the proper motion 
of throwing it into the sea; by which I under- 
stood, as I did afterwards, that they had 
thrown all the small arms, powder, shot, 
swords, etc., into the sea, believing, as I sup- 
posed, those things would kill them, though the 
men were gone. 

After we understood this we made no ques- 
tion but that the ship's crew, having been sur- 
prised by these desperate rogues, had gone the 
same way, and had been thrown overboard 
also. We looked all over the ship to see if we 
could find any blood, and we thought we did 
perceive some in several places; but the heat 
of the sun, melting the pitch and tar upon the 
decks, made it impossible for us to discern it 
exactly, except in the round-house, where we 
plainly saw that there had been much blood. 
We found the scuttle open, by which we sup- 
posed that the captain and those that were with 



him had made their retreat into the great cabin, 
or those in the cabin had made their escape 
up into the round-house. 

But that which confirmed us most of all in 
what had happened was that, upon further 
inquiry, we found that there were seven or 
eight of the negroes very much wounded, two 
or three of them with shot, whereof one had 
his leg broken and lay in a miserable condition, 
the flesh being mortified, and, as our friend 
William said, in two days more he would have 
died. William was a most dexterous surgeon, 
and he showed it in this cure; for though all 
the surgeons we had on board both our ships 
(and we had no less than five that called them- 
selves bred surgeons, besides two or three who 
were pretenders or assistants) — though all 
these gave their opinions that the negro's leg 
must be cut off, and that his life could not be 
saved without it; that the mortification had 
touched the marrow in the bone, that the 
tendons were mortified, and that he could 
never have the use of his leg if it should be 
cured, William said nothing in general, but that 
his opinion was otherwise, and that he desired 
the wound might be searched, and that he 
would then tell them further. Accordingly 
he went to work with the leg; and, as he de- 
sired that he might have some of the surgeons 
to assist him, we appointed him two of the 
ablest of them to help, and all of them to look 
on, if they thought fit. 

William went to work his own way, and some 
of them pretended to find fault at first. How- 
ever, he proceeded and searched every part of 
the leg where he suspected the mortification had 
touched it; in a word, he cut off a great deal 
of mortified flesh, in all which the poor fellow 
felt no pain. William proceeded till he brought 
the vessels which he had cut to bleed, and the 
man to cry out; then he reduced the splinters 
of the bone, and, calling for help, set it, as we 
call it, and bound it up, and laid the man to 
rest, who found himself much easier than 
before. 

At the first opening the surgeons began to 
triumph; the mortification seemed to spread, 
and a long red streak of blood appeared from 
the wound upwards to the middle of the man's 
thigh, and the surgeons told me the man would 
die in a few hours. I went to look at it, and 
found William himself under some surprise; 
but when I asked him how long he thought the 
poor fellow could live, he looked gravely at 
me, and said, "As long as thou canst; I am 
not at all apprehensive of his life," said he, 



1 84 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



"but I would cure him, if I could, without 
making a cripple of him." I found he was 
not just then upon the operation as to his leg, 
but was mixing up something to give the poor 
creature, to repel, as I thought, the spreading 
contagion, and to abate or prevent any feverish 
temper that might happen in the blood; after 
which he went to work again, and opened the 
leg in two places above the wound, cutting out 
a great deal of mortified flesh, which it seemed 
was occasioned by the bandage, which had 
pressed the parts too much; and withal, the 
blood being at the time in a more than com- 
mon disposition to mortify, might assist to 
spread it. 

Well, our friend William conquered all this, 
cleared the spreading mortification, and the 
red streak went off again, the flesh began to 
heal, and the matter to run; and in a few 
days the man's spirits began to recover, his 
pulse beat regular, he had no fever, and gathered 
strength daily; and, in a word, he was a perfect 
sound man in about ten weeks, and we kept him 
amongst us, and made him an able seaman. 
But to return to the ship: we never could come 
at a certain information about it, till some of 
the negroes which we kept on board, and whom 
we taught to speak English, gave the account 
of it afterwards, and this maimed man in 
particular. 

We inquired, by all the signs and motions 
we could imagine, what was become of the peo- 
ple, and yet we could get nothing from them. 
Our lieutenant was for torturing some of them 
to make them confess, but William opposed 
that vehemently; and when he heard it was 
under consideration he came to me. "Friend," 
says he, "I make a request to thee not to put 
any of these poor wretches to torment." "Why, 
William," said I, "why not? You see they 
will not give any account of what is become of 
the white men." "Nay," says William, "do 
not say so; I suppose they have given thee a 
full account of every particular of it." "How 
so?" says I; "pray what are we the wiser for 
all their jabbering?" "Nay," says William, 
"that may be thy fault, for aught I know; thou 
wilt not punish the poor men because they 
cannot speak English; and perhaps they never 
heard a word of English before. Now, I 
may very well suppose that they have given 
thee a large account of everything; for thou 
seest with what earnestness, and how long, 
some of them have talked to thee ; and if thou 
canst not understand their language, nor they 
thine, how can they help that? At the best, 



thou dost but suppose that they have not told 
thee the whole truth of the story; and, on 
the contrary, I suppose they have; and how 
wilt thou decide the question, whether thou art 
right or whether I am right? Besides, what 
can they say to thee when thou askest them a 
question, upon the torture, and at the same 
time they do not understand the question, and 
thou dost not know whether they say ay or 
no?" 

It is no compliment to my moderation to say 
I was convinced by these reasons; and yet we 
had all much ado to keep our second lieutenant 
from murdering some of them, to make them 
tell. What if they had told? He did not un- 
derstand one word of it; but he would not 
be persuaded but that the negroes must needs 
understand him when he asked them whether 
the ship had any boat or no, like ours, and what 
was become of it. 

But there was no remedy but to wait till we 
made these people understand English, and to 
adjourn the story till that time. 

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745) 

From THE TALE OF A TUB 

THE PREFACE 

The wits of the present age being so very 
numerous and penetrating, it seems the gran- 
dees of Church and State begin to fall under 
horrible apprehensions lest these gentlemen, dur- 
ing the intervals of a long peace, should find leis- 
ure to pick holes in the weak sides of religion 
and government. To prevent which, there has 
been much thought employed of late upon 
certain projects for taking off the force and 
edge of those formidable inquirers from can- 
vassing and reasoning upon such delicate 
points. They have at length fixed upon one, 
which will require some time as well as cost 
to perfect. Meanwhile, the danger hourly in- 
creasing, as by new levies of wits, all appointed 
(as there is reason to fear) with pen, ink, and 
paper, which may at an hour's warning be 
drawn out into pamphlets and other offensive 
weapons ready for immediate execution, it 
was judged of absolute necessity that some 
present expedient be thought on till the main 
design can be brought to maturity. To this 
end, at a grand committee, some days ago, 
this important discovery was made by a certain 
curious and refined observer, that seamen have 
a custom when they meet a Whale to fling him 



THE TALE OF A TUB 



185 



out an empty Tub, by way of amusement, to 
divert him from laying violent hands upon the 
Ship. This parable was immediately mythol- 
ogised; the Whale was interpreted to be 
Hobbes's "Leviathan," which tosses and plays 
with all other schemes of religion and govern- 
ment, whereof a great many are hollow, and 
dry, and empty, and noisy, and wooden, and 
given to rotation. This is the Leviathan from 
whence the terrible wits of our age are said 
to borrow their weapons. The Ship in danger 
is easily understood to be its old antitype the 
commonwealth. But how to analyse the Tub 
was a matter of difficulty, when, after long 
inquiry and debate, the literal meaning was 
preserved, and it was decreed that, in order to 
prevent these Leviathans from tossing and 
sporting with the commonwealth, which of 
itself is too apt to fluctuate, they should be 
diverted from that game by "A Tale of a Tub." 
And my genius being conceived to lie not un- 
happily that way, I had the honour done me 
to be engaged in the performance. 

This is the sole design in publishing the 
following treatise, which I hope will serve for 
an interim of some months to employ those 
unquiet spirits till the perfecting of that great 
work, into the secret of which it is reasonable 
the courteous reader should have some little 
light. 

It is intended that a large Academy be 
erected, capable of containing nine thousand 
seven hundred forty and three persons, which, 
by modest computation, is reckoned to be pretty 
near the current number of wits in this island. 
These are to be disposed into the several schools 
of this Academy, and there pursue those stud- 
ies to which their genius most inclines them. 
The undertaker himself will publish his pro- 
posals with all convenient speed, to which I 
shall refer the curious reader for a more par- 
ticular account, mentioning at present only a 
few of the principal schools. There is, first, 
a large pederastic school, with French and 
Italian masters; there is also the spelling 
school, a very spacious building; the school 
of looking-glasses; the school of swearing; 
the school of critics; the school of salivation; 
the school of hobby-horses ; the school of poetry ; 
the school of tops; the school of spleen; the 
school of gaming ; with many others too tedious 
to recount. No person to be admitted member 
into any of these schools without an attesta- 
tion under two sufficient persons' hands certi- 
fying him to be a wit. 

But to return. I am sufficiently instructed in 



the principal duty of a preface if my genius 
were capable of arriving at it. Thrice have I 
forced my imagination to take the tour of my 
invention, and thrice it has returned empty, 
the latter having been wholly drained by the 
following treatise. Not so my more success- 
ful brethren the moderns, who will by no 
means let slip a preface or dedication without 
some notable distinguishing stroke to surprise 
the reader at the entry, and kindle a wonderful 
expectation of what is to ensue. Such was that 
of a most ingenious poet, who, soliciting his 
brain for something new, compared himself 
to the hangman and his patron to the patient. 
This was insigne, recens, indicium ore alio. 1 
When I went through that necessary and noble 
course of study, 2 I had the happiness to observe 
many such egregious touches, which I shall not 
injure the authors by transplanting, because I 
have remarked that nothing is so very tender 
as a modern piece of wit, and which is apt to 
suffer so much in the carriage. Some things 
are extremely witty to-day, or fasting, or in 
this place, or at eight o'clock, or over a bottle, 
or spoke by Mr. Whatdyecall'm, or in a sum- 
mer's morning, any of which, by the smallest 
transposal or misapplication, is utterly anni- 
hilate. Thus wit has its walks and purlieus, 
out of which it may not stray the breadth of a 
hair, upon peril of being lost. The moderns 
have artfully fixed this Mercury, and reduced 
it to the circumstances of time, place, and per- 
son. Such a jest there is that will not pass 
out of Covent Garden, and such a one that is 
nowhere intelligible but at Hyde Park Corner. 
Now, though it sometimes tenderly affects me 
to consider that all the towardly passages I 
shall deliver in the following treatise will grow 
quite out of date and relish with the first shifting 
of the present scene, yet I must need subscribe 
to the justice of this proceeding, because I can- 
not imagine why we should be at expense to 
furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former 
have made no sort of provision for ours; wherein 

1 speak the sentiment of the very newest, and 
consequently the most orthodox refiners, as 
well as my own. However, being extremely 
solicitous that every accomplished person 
who has got into the taste of wit calculated 
for this present month of August 1697 should 
descend to the very bottom of all the sublime 
throughout this treatise, I hold it fit to lay down 
this general maxim. Whatever reader desires 

1 Notable, new, and unspoken by another. 

2 Reading prefaces, etc. — Swift's note. 



1 86 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



to have a thorough comprehension of an author's 
thoughts, cannot take a better method than by 
putting himself into the circumstances and pos- 
ture of life that the writer was in upon every 
important passage as it flowed from his pen, 
for this will introduce a parity and strict cor- 
respondence of ideas between the reader and 
the author. Now, to assist the diligent reader 
in so delicate an affair — as far as brevity 
will permit 1 have recollected that the 
shrewdest pieces of this treatise were conceived 
in lied in a garret. At other times (for a reason 
best known to myself) i thought fit to sharpen 
my invention with hunger, and in general the 
whole work was begun, continued, and ended 
under a long course of physic and a great 
want of money. Now, I do affirm it will be 
absolutely impossible for the candid peruser to 
go along with me in a great many bright pas- 
sages, unless upon the several difficulties 
emergent he will please to capacitate and pre- 
pare himself bv these directions. And this 
I lay down as my principal postulatum. 1 

Because I have professed to be a most de- 
voted servant of all modern forms, I appre- 
hend some curious wit may object against me 
for proceeding thus far in a preface without 
declaiming, according to custom, against the 
multitude of writers whereof the whole mul- 
titude of writers most reasonably complain. 
1 am just come from perusing some hundreds of 
prefaces, wherein the authors do at the very 
beginning address the gentle reader concern- 
ing this enormous grievance. Of these I have 
preserved a few examples, and shall set them 
down as near as my memory has been able to 
retain them. 

One begins thus: "For a man to set up for 
a writer when the press swarms with," etc. 

Another: "The tax upon paper does not 
lessen the number of scribblers who daily 
pester," etc. 

Another: "When every little would-be wit 
takes pen in hand, 'tis in vain to enter the lists," 
etc. 

Another: "To observe what trash the press 
swarms with," etc. 

Another: "Sir, it is merely in obedience to 
your commands that I venture into the public, 
for who upon a less consideration would be of 
a party with such a rabble of scribblers," etc. 

Now, 1 have two words in my own defence 
against this objection. First, I am far from 
granting the number of writers a nuisance to 

1 postulate 



our nation, having strenuously maintained the 
contrary in several parts of the following dis- 
course; secondly, I do not well understand the 
justice of this proceeding, because I observe 
many of these polite prefaces to be not only 
from the same hand, but from those who are 
most voluminous in their several productions; 
upon which I shall tell the reader a short tale. 

A mountebank in Leicester Fields had drawn 
a huge assembly about him. Among the rest, 
a fat unwieldy fellow, half stifled in the press, 
would be every fit crying out, "Lord! what a 
filthy crowd is here. Pray, good people, give 
way a little. Bless me ! what a devil has raked 
this rabble together. Z — ds, what squeezing 
is this? Honest friend, remove your elbow." 
At last a weaver that stood next him could 
hold no longer. "A plague confound you," 
said he, "for an overgrown sloven; and who in 
the devil's name, I wonder, helps to make up the 
crowd half so much as yourself? Don't you 
consider that you take up more room with that 
carcass than any five here ? Is not the place as 
free for us as for you? Bring your own guts 
to a reasonable compass, and then I'll engage 
we shall have room enough for us all." 

There are certain common privileges of a 
writer, the benefit whereof I hope there will 
be no reason to doubt; particularly, that 
where I am not understood, it shall be con- 
cluded that something very useful and profound 
is couched underneath; and again, that what- 
ever word or sentence is printed iiva different 
character shall be judged to contain some- 
thing extraordinary either of wit or sublime. 

As for the liberty I have thought fit to take 
of praising myself, upon some occasions or 
none, I am sure it will need no excuse if a 
multitude of great examples be allowed suffi- 
cient authority; for it is here to be noted that 
praise was originally a pension paid by the 
world, but the moderns, finding the trouble 
and charge too great in collecting it, have 
lately bought out the fee-simple, since which 
time the right of presentation is wholly in 
ourselves. For this reason it is that when an 
author makes his own eulogy, he uses a cer- 
tain form to declare and insist upon his title, 
which is commonly in these or the like words, 
"I speak without vanity," which I think 
plainly shows it to be a matter of right ami 
justice. Now, I do here once for all declare, 
that in every encounter of this nature through 
the following treatise the form aforesaid is im- 
plied, which I mention to save the trouble of 
repeating it on so many occasions. 



THE TALE OF A TUB 



187 



It is a great ease to my conscience that I 
have written so elaborate and useful a dis- 
course without one grain of satire intermixed, 
which is the sole point wherein I have taken 
leave to dissent from the famous originals of 
our age and country. I have observed some 
satirists to use the public much at the rate that 
pedants do a naughty boy ready horsed for 
discipline. First expostulate the case, then 
plead the necessity of the rod from great provo- 
cations, and conclude every period with a 
lash. Now, if I know anything of mankind, 
these gentlemen might very well spare their 
reproof and correction, for there is not through 
all Nature another so callous and insensible a 
member as the world's posteriors, whether you 
apply to it the toe or the birch. Besides, most 
of our late satirists seem to lie under a sort of 
mistake, that because nettles have the pre- 
rogative to sling, therefore all other weeds 
must do so too. I make not this comparison 
out of the least design to detract from these 
worthy writers, for it is well known among 
mythologists that weeds have the preeminence 
over all other vegetables; and therefore the 
first monarch of this island whose taste and 
judgment were so acute and refined, did very 
wisely root out the roses from the collar of 
the order and plant the thistles in their stead, 
as the nobler flower of the two. For which 
reason it is conjectured by profounder anti- 
quaries that the satirical itch, so prevalent in 
this part of our island, was first brought among 
us from beyond the Tweed. Here may it long 
flourish and abound; may it survive and neg- 
lect the scorn of the world with as much ease 
and contempt as the world is insensible to 
the lashes of it. May their own dulness, or 
that of their party, be no discouragement for 
the authors to proceed; but let them remem- 
ber it is with wits as with razors, which are 
never so apt to cut those they are employed 
on as when they have lost their edge. Be- 
sides, those whose teeth are too rotten to bite 
are best of all others qualified to revenge that 
defect with their breath. 

I am not, like other men, to envy or under- 
value the talents I cannot reach, for which 
reason I must needs bear a true honour to 
this large eminent sect of our British writers. 
And I hope this little panegyric will not be 
offensive to their ears, since it has the ad- 
vantage of being only designed for themselves. 
Indeed, Nature herself has taken order that 
fame and honour should be purchased at a 
better pennyworth by satire than by any other 



productions of the brain, the world being 
soonest provoked to praise by lashes, as men 
are to love. There is a problem in an ancient 
author why dedications and other bundles of 
flattery run all upon stale musty topics, with- 
out the smallest tincture of anything new, not 
only to the torment and nauseating of the 
Christian reader, but, if not suddenly pre- 
vented, to the universal spreading of that 
pestilent disease the lethargy in this island, 
whereas there is very little satire which has 
not something in it untouched before. The 
defects of the former are usually imputed to 
the want of invention among those who are 
dealers in that kind; but I think with a great 
deal of injustice, the solution being easy and 
natural, for the materials of panegyric, being 
very few in number, have been long since 
exhausted; for as health is but one thing, and 
has been always the same, whereas diseases 
are by thousands, besides new and daily 
additions, so all the virtues that have been 
ever in mankind are to be counted upon a few 
fingers, but his follies and vices are innumer- 
able, and time adds hourly to the heap. Now 
the utmost a poor poet can do is to get by 
heart a list of the cardinal virtues and deal 
them with his utmost liberality to his hero or 
his patron. lie may ring the changes as far 
as it will go, and vary his phrase till he has 
talked round, but the reader quickly finds it 
is all pork, with a little variety of sauce, for 
there is no inventing terms of art beyond our 
ideas, and when ideas are exhausted, terms of 
art must be so too. 

But though the matter for panegyric were 
as fruitful as the topics of satire, yet would it 
not be hard to find out a sufficient reason why 
the latter will be always better received than 
the first; for this being bestowed only upon 
one or a few persons at a time, is sure to raise 
envy, and consequently ill words, from the 
rest who have no share in the blessing. But 
satire, being levelled at all, is never resented 
for an offence by any, since every individual 
person makes bold to understand it of others, 
and very wisely removes his particular part of 
the burden upon the shoulders of the World, 
which are broad enough and able to bear it. 
To this purpose I have sometimes reflected 
upon the difference between Athens and Eng- 
land with respect to the point before us. In 
the Attic commonwealth it was the privilege 
and birthright of every citizen and poet to 
rail aloud and in public, or to expose upon 
the stage by name any person they pleased, 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



though of the greatest figure, whether a Creon, 
an Hyperbolus, an Alcibiades, or a Demos- 
thenes. But, on the other side, the least 
reflecting word let fall against the people in 
general was immediately caught up and 
revenged upon the authors, however con- 
siderable for their quality or their merits; 
whereas in England it is just the reverse of 
all this. Here you may securely display your 
utmost rhetoric against mankind in the face 
of the world; tell them that all are gone 
astray; that there is none that doeth good, 
no, not one; that we live in the very dregs of 
time; that knavery and atheism are epidemic 
as the pox; that honesty is fled with Astraea; 
with any other common-places equally new 
and eloquent, which are furnished by the 
splendida bills; l and when you have done, 
the whole audience, far from being offended, 
shall return you thanks as a deliverer of 
precious and useful truths. Nay, further, it is 
but to venture your lungs, and you may preach 
in Covent Garden against foppery and forni- 
cation, and something else; against pride, and 
dissimulation, and bribery at Whitehall. You 
may expose rapine and injustice in the Inns- 
of-Court chapel, and in a City pulpit be as 
fierce as you please against avarice, hypocrisy, 
and extortion. It is but a ball bandied to and 
fro, and every man carries a racket about 
him to strike it from himself among the rest 
of the company. But, on the other side, who- 
ever should mistake the nature of things so 
far as to drop but a single hint in public how 
such a one starved half the fleet, and half 
poisoned the rest; how such a one, from a 
true principle of love and honour, pays no 
debts but for wenches and play; how such a 
one runs out oi his estate ; how Paris, bribed 
by Juno and Venus, loath to offend either 
party, slept out the whole cause on the bench; 
or how such an orator makes long speeches in 
the Senate, with much thought, little sense, 
and to no purpose ; — whoever, I say, should 
venture to be thus particular must expect to 
be imprisoned for scandalum magnatum, 2 to 
have challenges sent him, to be sued for defa- 
mation, and to be brought before the bar of 
the House. 

But I forget that I am expatiating on a sub- 
ject wherein I have no concern, having neither 
a talent nor an inclination for satire. On the 
other side, I am so entirely satisfied with the 



1 The spleen, or what wc now call hypochondria. 
2 libel of the great 



whole present procedure of human things, 
that I have been for some years preparing 
material towards "A Panegyric upon the 
World"; to which I intended to add a second 
part, entitled "A Modest Defence of the Pro- 
ceedings of the Rabble in all Ages." Both 
these I had thoughts to publish by way of 
appendix to the following treatise; but find- 
ing my common-place book fill much slower 
than I had reason to expect, I have chosen to 
defer them to another occasion. Besides, I 
have been unhappily prevented in that design 
by a certain domestic misfortune, in the partic- 
ulars whereof, though it would be very season- 
able, and much in the modern way, to inform 
the gentle reader, and would also be of great 
assistance towards extending this preface into 
the size now in vogue — which by rule ought 
to be large in proportion as the subsequent 
volume is small — yet I shall now dismiss our 
impatient reader from any further attendance 
at the porch; and having duly prepared his 
mind by a preliminary discourse, shall gladly 
introduce him to the sublime mysteries that 
ensue. 

SECTION II 

Once upon a time there was man who had 
three sons by one wife and all at a birth, 
neither could the midwife tell certainly which 
was the eldest. Their father died while they 
were young, and upon his death-bed, calling 
the lads to him, spoke thus: 

"Sons, because I have purchased no estate, 
nor was born to any, I have long considered of 
some good legacies to bequeath you, and at 
last, with much care as well as expense, have 
provided each of you (here they are) a new 
coat. Now, you are to understand that these 
coats have two virtues contained in them; 
one is, that with good wearing they will last 
you fresh and sound as long as you live; the 
other is, that they will grow in the same pro- 
portion with your bodies, lengthening and 
widening of themselves, so as to be always fit. 
Here, let me see them on you before I die. 
So, very well! Pray, children, wear them 
clean and brush them often. You will find 
in my will (here it is) full instructions in every 
particular concerning the wearing and manage- 
ment of your coats, wherein you must be very 
exact to avoid the penalties I have appointed 
for every transgression or neglect, upon which 
your future fortunes will entirely depend. I 
have also commanded in my will that you 
should live together in one house like brethren 



THE TALE OF A TUB 



189 



and friends, for then you will be sure to thrive 
and not otherwise." 

Here the story says this good father died, 
and the three sons went all together to seek 
their fortunes. 

I shall not trouble you with recounting what 
adventures they met for the first seven years, any 
farther than by taking notice that they carefully 
observed their father's will and kept their coats 
in very good order; that they travelled through 
several countries, encountered a reasonable 
quantity of giants, and slew certain dragons. 

Being now arrived at the proper age for 
producing themselves, they came up to town 
and fell in love with the ladies, but especially 
three, who about that time were in chief repu- 
tation, the Duchess d'Argent, Madame de 
Grands-Titres, and the Countess d'Orgueil. 
On their first appearance, our three adven- 
turers met with a very bad reception, and soon 
with great sagacity guessing out the reason, 
they quickly began to improve in the good 
qualities of the town. They wrote, and rallied, 
and rhymed, and sung, and said, and said 
nothing; they drank, and fought, and slept, 
and swore, and took snuff; they went to new 
plays on the first night, haunted the chocolate- 
houses, beat the watch; they bilked hackney- 
coachmen, ran in debt with shopkeepers, and 
lay with their wives; they killed bailiffs, 
kicked fiddlers downstairs, ate at Locket's, 
loitered at Will's; they talked of the drawing- 
room and never came there; dined with lords 
they never saw; whispered a duchess and 
spoke never a word; exposed the scrawls of 
their laundress for billet-doux of quality; 
came ever just from court and were never seen 
in it; attended the levee sub dio; l got a list 
of peers by heart in one company, and with 
great familiarity retailed them in another. 
Above all, they constantly attended those 
committees of Senators who are silent in the 
House and loud in the coffee-house, where 
they nightly adjourn to chew the cud of poli- 
tics, and are encompassed with a ring of 
disciples who lie in wait to catch up their 
droppings. The three brothers had acquired 
forty other qualifications of the like stamp too 
tedious to recount, and by consequence were 
justly reckoned the most accomplished persons 
in town. But all would not suffice, and the 
ladies aforesaid continued still inflexible. To 
clear up which difficulty, I must, with the 
reader's good leave and patience, have re- 

1 in the open air 



course to some points of weight which the 
authors of that age have not sufficiently illus- 
trated. 

For about this time it happened a sect arose 
whose tenets obtained and spread very far, 
especially in the grand monde, and among 
everybody of good fashion. They worshipped 
a sort of idol, who, as their doctrine delivered, 
did daily create men by a kind of manufactory 
operation. This idol they placed in the 
highest parts of the house on an altar erected 
about three feet. He was shown in the pos- 
ture of a Persian emperor sitting on a super- 
ficies with his legs interwoven under him. 
This god had a goose for his ensign, whence 
it is that some learned men pretend to deduce 
his original from Jupiter Capitolinus. At his 
left hand, beneath the altar, Hell seemed to 
open and catch at the animals the idol was 
creating, to prevent which, certain of his 
priests hourly flung in pieces of the unin- 
formed mass or substance, and sometimes 
whole limbs already enlivened, which that 
horrid gulf insatiably swallowed, terrible to 
behold. The goose was also held a subaltern 
divinity or Deus minorum gentium, 1 before 
whose shrine was sacrificed that creature 
whose hourly food is human gore, and who is 
in so great renown abroad for being the de- 
light and favourite of the Egyptian Cercopi- 
thecus. Millions of these animals were cruelly 
slaughtered every day to appease the hunger 
of that consuming deity. The chief idol was 
also worshipped as the inventor of the yard 
and the needle, whether as the god of seamen, 
or on account of certain other mystical attri- 
butes, hath not been sufficiently cleared. 

The worshippers of this deity had also a 
system of their belief which seemed to turn 
upon the following fundamental. They held 
the universe to be a large suit of clothes which 
invests everything; that the earth is invested 
by the air; the air is invested by the stars; 
and the stars are invested by the Primum 
Mobile. 2 Look on this globe of earth, you 
will find it to be a very complete and fashion- 
able dress. What is that which some call 
land but a fine coat faced with green, or the 
sea but a waistcoat of water-tabby? Proceed 
to the particular works of the creation, you 
will find how curious journeyman Nature hath 
been to trim up the vegetable beaux; observe 
how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a 

1 a god of the lesser peoples 2 In the Ptolemaic 
system of astronomy, the hollow sphere inclosing the 
universe and moving all things with it. 



190 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



beech, and what a fine doublet of white satin 
is worn by the birch. To conclude from all, 
what is man himself but a microcoat, or rather 
a complete suit of clothes with all its trim- 
mings? As to his body there can be no dis- 
pute, but examine even the acquirements of 
his mind, you will find them all contribute in 
their order towards furnishing out an exact 
dress. To instance no more, is not religion a 
cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the 
dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and 
conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a 
cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is 
easily slipped down for the service of both. 

These postulate being admitted, it will 
follow in due course of reasoning that those 
beings which the world calls improperly suits 
of clothes are in reality the most refined species 
of animals, or, to proceed higher, that they are 
rational creatures or men. For is it not mani- 
fest that they live, and move, and talk, and 
perform all other offices of human life? Are 
not beauty, and wit, and mien, and breeding 
their inseparable proprieties? In short, we 
see nothing but them, hear nothing but them. 
Is it not they who walk the streets, fill up 
Parliament-, coffee-, play-, bawdy-houses? It 
is true, indeed, that these animals, which are 
vulgarly called suits of clothes or dresses, do 
according to certain compositions receive dif- 
ferent appellations. If one of them be trimmed 
up with a gold chain, and a red gown, and a 
white rod, and a great horse, it is called a 
Lord Mayor; if certain ermines and furs be 
placed in a certain position, we style them a 
Judge, and so an apt conjunction of lawn and 
black satin we entitle a Bishop. 

Others of these professors, though agreeing 
in the main system, were yet more refined 
upon certain branches of it; and held that 
man was an animal compounded of two 
dresses, the natural and the celestial suit, 
which were the body and the soul; that the 
soul was the outward, and the body the in- 
ward clothing; that the latter was ex traduce, 
but the former of daily creation and circum- 
fusion. This last they proved by Scripture, 
because in them we live, and move, and have 
our being: as likewise by philosophy, because 
they are all in all, and all in every part. Be- 
sides, said they, separate these two, and you 
will find the body to be only a senseless un- 
savoury carcass. By all which it is manifest 
that the outward dress must needs be the soul. 

To this system of religion were tagged 
several subaltern doctrines, which were enter- 



tained with great vogue; as particularly the 
faculties of the mind were deduced by the 
learned among them in this manner: em- 
broidery was sheer wit, gold fringe was agree- 
able conversation, gold lace was repartee, a 
huge long periwig was humour, and a coat full 
of powder was very good raillery. All which 
required abundance of finesse and delicatesse 
to manage with advantage, as well as a strict 
observance after times and fashions. 

I have with much pains and reading col- 
lected out of ancient authors this short sum- 
mary of a body of philosophy and divinity 
which seems to have been composed by a vein 
and race of thinking very different from any 
other systems, either ancient or modern. And 
it was not merely to entertain or satisfy the 
reader's curiosity, but rather to' give him light 
into several circumstances of the following 
story, that, knowing the state of dispositions 
and opinions in an age so remote, he may 
better comprehend those great events which 
were the issue of them. I advise, therefore, 
the courteous reader to peruse with a world of 
application, again and again, whatever I have 
written upon this matter. And so leaving 
these broken ends, I carefully gather up the 
chief thread of my story, and proceed. 

These opinions, therefore, were so universal, 
as well as the practices of them, among the 
refined part of court and town, that our three 
brother adventurers, as their circumstances 
then stood, were strangely at a loss. For, on 
the one side, the three ladies they addressed 
themselves to (whom we have named already) 
were ever at the very top of the fashion, and 
abhorred all that were below it but the breadth 
of a hair. On the other side, their father's 
will was very precise, and it was the main 
precept in it, with the greatest penalties an- 
nexed, not to add to or diminish from their 
coats one thread without a positive command 
in the will. Now the coats their father had 
left them were, it is true, of very good cloth, 
and besides, so neatly sewn you would swear 
they were all of a piece, but, at the same time, 
very plain, with little or no ornament; and it 
happened that before they were a month in 
town great shoulder-knots came up. Straight 
all the world was shoulder-knots ; no approach- 
ing the ladies' ruelles without the quota of 
shoulder-knots. "That fellow," cries one, 
"has no soul: where is his shoulder-knot?" 
Our three brethren soon discovered their 
want by sad experience, meeting in their 
walks with forty mortifications and indignities. 



THE TALE OF A TUB 



191 



If they went to the play-house, the doorkeeper 
showed them into the twelve-penny gallery. 
If they called a boat, says a waterman, "I 
am first sculler." If they stepped into the 
" Rose" to take a bottle, the drawer would cry, 
"Friend, we sell no ale." If they went to 
visit a lady, a footman met them at the door 
with "Pray, send up your message." In this 
unhappy case they went immediately to con- 
sult their father's will, read it over and over, 
but not a word of the shoulder-knot. What 
should they do? What temper should they 
find? Obedience was absolutely necessary, 
and yet shoulder-knots appeared extremely 
requisite. After much thought, one of the 
brothers, who happened to be more book- 
learned than the other two, said he had found 
an expedient. "It is true," said he, "there is 
nothing here in this will, totidem verbis, 1 
making mention of shoulder-knots, but I dare 
conjecture we may find them inclusive, or 
totidem syllabis." 2 This distinction was im- 
mediately approved by all; and so they fell 
again to examine the will. But their evil star 
had so directed the matter that the first syllable 
was not to be found in the whole writing; 
upon which disappointment, he who found the 
former evasion took heart, and said, "Brothers, 
there is yet hopes; for though we cannot find 
them totidem verbis nor totidem syllabis, I dare 
engage we shall make them out tcrtio modo 3 
or totidem Uteris.'" 4 This discovery was also 
highly commended, upon which they fell once 
more to the scrutiny, and soon picked out 
S, H, O, U, L, D, E, R, when the same planet, 
enemy to their repose, had wonderfully con- 
trived that a K was not to be found. Here 
was a weighty difficulty! But the distinguish- 
ing brother (for whom we shall hereafter find 
a name), now his hand was in, proved by a 
very good argument that K was a modern 
illegitimate letter, unknown to the learned 
ages, nor anywhere to be found in ancient 
manuscripts. "It is true," said he, "the word 
Calendae had in Q. V. C. 5 been sometimes 
writ with a K, but erroneously, for in the best 
copies it is ever spelled with a C ; and by con- 
sequence it was a gross mistake in our language 
to spell 'knot' with a K," but that from hence- 
forward he would take care it should be writ 
with a C. Upon this all further difficulty 
vanished; shoulder-knots were made clearly 



1 in exactly those words 2 in those very syllables 
3 in a third way 4 in those very letters s certain old 

Mss. 



out to be jure patemo, 1 and our three gentle- 
men swaggered with as large and as flaunting 
ones as the best. 

But as human happiness is of a very short 
duration, so in those days were human fashions, 
upon which it entirely depends. Shoulder- 
knots had their time, and we must now imagine 
them in their decline, for a certain lord came 
just from Paris with fifty yards of gold lace 
upon his coat, exactly trimmed after the court 
fashion of that month. In two days all man- 
kind appeared closed up in bars of gold lace. 
Whoever durst peep abroad without his com- 
plement of gold lace was as scandalous as a 

, and as ill received among the women. 

What should our three knights do in this 
momentous affair? They had sufficiently 
strained a point already in the affair of shoulder- 
knots. Upon recourse to the will, nothing ap- 
peared there but altum silentium? That of 
the shoulder-knots was a loose, flying, circum- 
stantial point, but this of gold lace seemed too 
considerable an alteration without better war- 
rant. It did aliquo modo essentiae adhaerere, 3 
and therefore required a positive precept. But 
about this time it fell out that the learned 
brother aforesaid had read "Aristotelis Dia- 
lectica," and especially that wonderful piece 
de Interpretation, which has the faculty of 
teaching its readers to find out a meaning in 
everything but itself, like commentators on 
the Revelations, who proceed prophets with- 
out understanding a syllable of the text. 
"Brothers," said he, "you are to be informed 
that of wills, duo sunt genera,* nuncupatory 
and scriptory, that in the scriptory will here 
before us there is no precept or mention about 
gold lace, conceditur? but si idem affirmetur de 
nuncupatorio negatur. 6 For, brothers, if you 
remember, we heard a fellow say when we 
were boys that he heard my father's man say 
that he heard my father say that he would 
advise his sons to get gold lace on their coats 
as soon as ever they could procure money to 
buy it." "That is very true," cries the other. 
"I remember it perfectly well," said the third. 
And so, without more ado, they got the largest 
gold lace in the parish, and walked about as 
fine as lords. 

A while after, there came up all in fashion a 
pretty sort of flame-coloured satin for linings, 

1 by paternal authority 2 absolute silence 3 it be- 
longed in a manner to the essential meaning i are of 
two kinds 5 it is admitted 6 but if the same is affirmed 
of a nuncupatory will, we deny it , 



192 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



and the mercer brought a pattern of it im- 
mediately to our three gentlemen. "An please 

your Worships," said lie, "my Lord C 

and Sir |. \Y. had linings out of this very 
piece last night; it takes wonderfully, and 1 
shall not have a remnant left enough to make 
my wife a pin-cushion by to-morrow morning 
at ten o'clock." Upon this they fell again to 
rummage the will, because the present ease 
also required a positive precept, the lining 
being held by orthodox writers to be of the 
essence of the coat. After long search they 
could fix upon nothing to the matter in hand, 
except a short atlviee in their father's will to 
take care of lire and put out their candles 
before- they went to sleep. This, though a 

good deal for the purpose, and helping very 

far towards self conviction, yet not seeming 
wholly of force to establish a command, and 
being resolved to avoid further scruple, as 
well as future occasion for scandal, says he 
that was the scholar, "1 remember to have 
read in wills of a codicil annexed, which is 
indeed a part of the will, and what it contains 
hath equal authority with the rest. Now I 
have been considering of this same will here 
before us, and I cannot reckon it to be com- 
plete for want o{ such a codicil. 1 will there- 
fore fasten one in its proper place very dex- 
terously. 1 have had it by me some time; it 
was written by a dog-keeper of my grand- 
father's, and talks a great deal, as good luck 
would have it, of this very flame-coloured 
satin." The project was immediately ap- 
proved by the other two; an old parchment 
scroll was tagged on according 10 art, in the 
form of a codicil annexed, and the satin bought 
and worn. 

Next winter a player, hired for the purpose 
by the Corporation of I'ringemakers, acted his 
part in a new comedy, all covered with silver 
fringe, and according to the laudable custom 
gave rise to that fashion. Upon which the 
brothers, consulting their father's will, to their 
great astonishment found these words: "Item, 
I charge and command my said three sons to 
wear no sort of silver fringe upon or abom 
their said coats," etc., with a penalty in case 
of disobedience too long here to insert. How- 
ever, after some pause, the brother so often 
mentioned for his erudition, who was well 
skilled in criticisms, had found in a certain 
author, which he said should be nameless, 
that the same word which in the will is called 
fringe does also signify a broom stick, and 
doubtless ought to have the same interpre- 



tation in this paragraph. This another of 
the brothers disliked, because of that epithet 
silver, which could not, he humbly conceived, 
in propriety of speech be reasonably applied to 
a broom-stick; but it was replied upon him 
that this epithet was understood in a mytho- 
logical and allegorical sense. However, he 
objected again why their father should forbid 
them to wear a broom-stick on their coats, a 
caution that seemed unnatural and imperti- 
nent; upon which he was taken up short, as 
one that spoke irreverently oi a mystery which 
doubtless was very useful and significant, but 
ought not to be over-curiously pried into or 
nicely reasoned upon. And in short, their 
father's authority being now considerably 
sunk, this expedient was allowed to serve as a 
lawful dispensation for wearing their full 
proportion of silver fringe. 

A while after was revived an old fashion, 
long antiquated, of embroidery with Indian 
figures of men, women, and children. Here 
they had no occasion to examine the will. 
They remembered but too well how their 
father had always abhorred this fashion; that 
he made several paragraphs on purpose, im- 
porting his utter detestation oi ii, and bestow- 
ing his everlasting curse to his sons whenever 
they should wear it. For all this, in a few 
days they appeared higher in the fashion than 
anybody else in the town. Hut they solved 
the matter by saying that these figures were 
not at all the same with those that were formerly 
worn ami were meant in the will; besides, they 
did not wear them in that sense, as forbidden 
by their father, but as they were a commend- 
able CUStom, and of great use to the public. 
That these rigorous clauses in the will did 
therefore require some allowance ami a favour- 
able interpretation, and ought to be under- 
stood cum grotto salts.* 

But fashions perpetually altering in that 
age, the scholastic brother grew weary of 
searching further evasions and solving ever- 
lasting Contradictions. Resolved, therefore, at 
all hazards to comply with the modes of the 
world, they concerted matters together, and 
agreed unanimously to lock up their father's 
will in a strong-box, brought out of Greece or 
Italy (I have forgot which), and trouble them- 
selves no farther to examine it, but only refer 
to its authority whenever they thought fit. 
In consequence whereof, a while after it grew 
a general mode to wear an infinite number of 

1 with a grain of salt 



THE TALK OF A TUB 



193 



points, most of them tagged with silver; upon 
which the scholar pronounced ex cathedra ' 
that points were absolutely jure palcrno, as 
they might very well remember. It is true, 
indeed, the fashion prescribed somewhat more 
than were directly named in the will; how- 
ever, that they, as heirs general of their father, 
had power to make and add certain clauses 
for public emolument, though not dcducible 
todidem verbis from the letter of the will, or 
else Diidia absurda sequerentur. 2 This was 
understood for canonical, and therefore on the 
following Sunday they came to church all 
covered wilh points. 

The learned brother so often mentioned 
was reckoned the best scholar in all that or 
the next street to it; insomuch, as having run 
Something behindhand with the world, he 
obtained the favour from a certain lord to 
receive him into his house and to teach his 
children. A while after the lord died, and he, 
by long practice upon his father's will, found 
the way of contriving a deed of conveyance of 
that house to himself and his heirs; upon 
which he took possession, turned the young 
squires out, and received his brothers in their 
stead 



A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING 
THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN 
IRELAND FROM BEINO A HURDEN 
TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUN- 
TRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM 
BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC 

It is a melancholy object to those who walk 
through this great town, or travel in the coun- 
try, when they sec the streets, the roads, and 
cabin-doors, crowded wilh beggars of the 
female sex, followed by three, four, or six 
children, all in rags, and importuning every 
passenger for an alms. These mothers, in- 
stead of being able to work for their honest 
livelihood, are forced to employ all their time 
in strolling to beg sustenance for their help- 
less infants: who, as they grow up, either turn 
thieves for want of work, or leave their dear 
native country to fight for the Pretender in 
Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadocs. 

I think it is agreed by all parlies, that this 
prodigious number of children in the arms, 
or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, 
and frequently of their fathers, is, in the 
present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very 

1 officially 8 many absurd consequences would follow 



great additional grievance; and, therefore, 
whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy 
method of making these children sound, use- 
ful members of the commonwealth, would 
deserve so well of the- public, as to have his 
statue sei up for a preserver of the nation. 

Bui my intention is very far from being 
confined to provide only for the children of 
professed beggars; it is of a much greater 
extent, and shall take in the whole number 
of infants at a certain age, who are born of 
parents in effect as little able to support them 
as (hose who demand our charity in the si reels. 

As to my own part, having turned my 
thoughts for many years upon this important 
subject, and maturely weighed the several 
schemes of our projectors, I have always found 
them grossly mistaken in their computation. 
It is true, a child, just born, may be supported 
by its mother's milk for a solar year, with 
little other nourishment; at most, not above 
the value of two shillings, which the mother 
may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by 
her lawful occupation of begging; and it is 
exactly at one year old that I propose to pro- 
vide for them in such a manner, as, instead of 
being a charge upon their parents, or the 
parish, or wanting food and raiment for the 
rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, 
contribute to the feeding, and partly to the 
clothing, of many thousands. 

There is likewise another great advantage 
in my scheme, that it will prevent those volun- 
tary abortions, and that horrid practice of 
women murdering their bastard children, alas, 
too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor 
innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the 
expense than the shame, which would move 
tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman 
breast. 

The number of souls in this kingdom being 
usually reckoned one million and a half, of 
these I calculate there may be about two hun- 
dred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; 
from which number I subtract thirty thousand 
couple, who are able to maintain their own 
children, (although I apprehend there cannot 
be so many, under the present distresses of the 
kingdom); but this being granted, there will 
remain a hundred and seventy thousand 
breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand, for 
those women who miscarry, or whose children 
die by accident or disease within the year. 
There only remain a hundred and twenty 
thousand children of poor parents annually 
born. The question therefore is, How this 



i 9 4 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



number shall be reared and provided for? 
which, as I have already said, under the 
present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible 
by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we 
can neither employ them in handicraft or 
agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean 
in the country), nor cultivate land: they can 
very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, 
till they arrive at six years old, except where 
they are of toward ly parts; although I confess 
they learn the rudiments much earlier; during 
which time they can, however, be properly 
looked upon only as probationers; as I have 
been informed by a principal gentleman in the 
country of Cavan, .who protested to me, that 
he never knew above one or two instances 
under the age of six, even in a part of the 
kingdom so renowned for the quickest pro- 
ficiency in that art. 

I am assured by our merchants, that a boy 
or a girl before twelve years old is no saleable 
commodity; and even when they come to this 
age they will not yield above three pounds or 
three pounds and half-a-crown at most, on 
the exchange; which cannot turn to account 
either to the parents or kingdom, the charge 
of nutriment and rags having been at least four 
times that value. 

I shall now, therefore, humbly propose my 
own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable 
to the least objection. 

I have been assured by a very knowing Amer- 
ican of my acquaintance in London, that a 
young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year 
old, a most delicious, nourishing, and whole- 
some food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or 
boiled; and I make no doubt that it will 
equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. 

I do therefore humbly offer it to public con- 
sideration, that of the hundred and twenty 
thousand children already computed, twenty 
thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof 
only one-fourth part to be males; which is 
more than we allow to sheep* black -cattle, 
or swine: and my reason is, that these children 
are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circum- 
stance not much regarded by our savages, 
therefore one male will be sufficient for four 
females. That the remaining hundred thou- 
sand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to 
the persons of quality and fortune through the 
kingdom; always advising the mother to let 
them suck plentifully in the last month, so as 
to render them plump and fat for a good table. 
A child will make two dishes at an entertain- 
ment for friends; and when the family dines 



alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a 
reasonable dish, and, seasoned with a little 
pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the 
fourth day, especially in winter. 

I have reckoned, upon a medium, that a child 
just born will weigh twelve pounds, and in a 
solar year, if tolerably nursed, will increase to 
twenty-eight pounds. 

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and 
therefore very proper for landlords, wjio, as 
they have already devoured most of the parents, 
seem to have the best title to the children. 

Infants' flesh will be in season throughout 
the year, but more plentifully in March, and a 
little before and after: for we are told by a 
grave author, an eminent French physician, 
that fish being a prolific diet, there are more 
children born in Roman Catholic countries 
about nine months after Lent, than at any 
other season; therefore, reckoning a year after 
Lent, the markets will be more glutted than 
usual, because the number of Popish infants 
is at least three to one in this kingdom; and 
therefore it will have one other collateral 
advantage, by lessening the number of Papists 
among us. 

I have already computed the charge of 
nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon 
all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths of the 
farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, 
rags included; and I believe no gentleman 
would repine to give ten shillings for the car- 
cass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, 
will make four dishes of excellent nutritive 
meat, when he has only some particular friend, 
or his own family, to dine with him. Thus 
the squire will learn to be a good landlord, 
and grow popular among his tenants; the 
mother will have eight shillings net profit, 
and be fit for work till she produces another 
child. 

Those who are more thrifty (as I must con- 
fess the times require) may flay the carcass; 
the skin of which, artificially dressed, will 
make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer- 
boots for fine gentlemen. 

As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be 
appointed for this purpose in the most con- 
venient parts of it, and butchers we may be 
assured will not be wanting; although I rather 
recommend buying the children alive, then 
dressing them hot from the knife, as we do 
roasting pigs. 

A very worthy person, a true lover of his 
country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, 
was lately pleased, in discoursing on this matter, 



A MODEST PROPOSAL 



195 



to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He 
said, that many gentlemen of this kingdom, 
having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived 
that the want of venison might be well supplied 
by the bodies of young lads and maidens, 
not exceeding fourteen years of age, nor under 
twelve; so great a number of both sexes in 
every country being now ready to starve for 
want of work and service; and these to be dis- 
posed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise 
by their nearest relations. But, with due def- 
erence to so excellent a friend, and so deserv- 
ing a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his 
sentiments; for as to the males, my American 
acquaintance assured me, from frequent ex- 
perience, that their flesh was generally tough 
and lean, like that of our schoolboys, by con- 
tinual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; 
and to fatten them would not answer the charge. 
Then as to the females, it would, I think, with 
humble submission, be a loss to the public, 
because they soon would become breeders 
themselves: and besides, it is not improbable 
that some scrupulous people might be apt to 
censure such a practice, (although indeed very 
unjustly,) as a little bordering upon cruelty; 
which, I confess, has always been with me the 
strongest objection against any project, how 
well soever intended. 

But in order to justify my friend, he con- 
fessed that this expedient was put into his head 
by the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the 
island Formosa, who came from thence to 
London above twenty years ago; and in con- 
versation told my friend, that in his country, 
when any young person happened to be put 
to death, the executioner sold the carcass to 
persons of quality as a prime dainty; and that 
in his time the body of a plump girl of fifteen, 
who was crucified for an attempt to poison the 
emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's 
prime minister of state, and other great man- 
darins of the court, in joints from the gibbet, 
at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can 
I deny, that if the same use were made of several 
plump young girls in this town, who, without 
one single groat to their fortunes, cannot stir 
abroad without a chair, and appear at play- 
house and assemblies in foreign fineries which 
they never will pay for, the kingdom would not 
be the worse. 

Some persons of a desponding spirit are in 
great concern about that vast number of poor 
people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed; 
and I have been desired to employ my thoughts, 
what course may be taken to ease the nation of 



so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not 
in the least pain upon that matter, because it is 
very well known, that they are every day dying, 
and rotting, by cold and famine, and filth and 
vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. 
And as to the young labourers, they are now in 
almost as hopeful a condition: they cannot get 
work, and consequently pine away for want of 
nourishment, to a degree, that if at any time 
they are accidentally hired to common labour, 
they have not strength to perform it; and thus 
the country and themselves are happily de- 
livered from the evils to come. 

I have too long digressed, and therefore shall 
return to my subject. I think the advantages 
by the proposal which I have made, are obvious 
and many, as well as of the highest importance. 

For first, As I have already observed, it would 
greatly lessen the number of Papists, with 
whom we are yearly over-run, being the prin- 
cipal breeders of the nation, as well as our 
most dangerous enemies; and who stay at 
home on purpose to deliver the kingdom to 
the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage 
by the absence of so many good Protestants, 
who have chosen rather to leave their country, 
than stay at home and pay tithes against their 
conscience to an Episcopal curate. 

Secondly, The poorer tenants will have some- 
thing valuable of their own, which by law may 
be made liable to distress, and help to pay their 
landlord's rent; their corn and cattle being 
already seized, and money a thing unknown. 

Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of a 
hundred thousand children, from two years old 
and upward, cannot be computed at less than 
ten shillings apiece per annum, the nation's 
stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand 
pounds per annum, beside the profit of a new 
dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen 
of fortune in the kingdom, who have any refine- 
ment in taste. And the money will circulate 
among ourselves, the goods being entirely of 
our own growth and manufacture. 

Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside 
the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum 
by the sale of their children, will be rid of the 
charge of maintaining them after the first year. 

Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great 
custom to taverns; where the vintners will 
certainly be so prudent as to procure the best 
receipts for dressing it to perfection, and, conse- 
quently, have their houses frequented by all 
the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves 
upon their knowledge in good eating: and a 
skilful cook, who understands how to oblige 



196 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



lu's guests, will contrive to make il as expensive 
as they please. 

Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to 
marriage, which all wise nations have either 
encouraged by rewards, or enforced by laws 
and penalties: It would increase the care and 
tenderness of mothers toward their children, 
when they were sure of a settlement for life 
to the poor babes, provided in some sort by 
the public, to their annual profit or expense. 
We should see an honest emulation among the 
married women, which of them could bring the 
fattest child to the market. Men would become 
as fond of their wives during the time of their 
pregnancy, as they are now of their mares in foal, 
their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready 
to farrow; nor offer to Deal or kick them (as is 
too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage. 

Many other advantages might be enumer- 
ated, For instance, the addition of some thou- 
sand carcasses in our exportation of barrelled 
beef; the propagation of swine's flesh, and 
improvement in the art of making good bacon, 
so much wanted among us by the great destruc- 
tion oi pigs, too frequent at our table; which 
are no way comparable in taste or magnificence 
to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which, 
roasted whole, will make a considerable figure 
at a lord mayor's feast, or any other public 
entertainment. Hut this, and many others, 1 
omit, being studious of brevity. 

Supposing that one thousand families in this 
city would be constant customers for infants' 
flesh, beside others who might have it at merry - 
meetingS, particularly at weddings and chris- 
tenings, 1 compute that Dublin would take off 
annually about twenty thousand carcasses; 
and the rest of the kingdom (where probably 
they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the re- 
maining eighty thousand. 

I can think of no one objection that will 
possibly be raised against this proposal, unless 
it should be urged, that the number of people 
will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. 
This I freely own, and it was indeed one prin- 
cipal design in offering it to the world. I 
desire the reader will observe, (hat 1 calculate 
my remedy for this one individual kingdom of 
Ireland, and for no other that ever was, is, or 
1 think ever can be, upon earth. Therefore let 
no man talk to me of other expedients: of 
taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: 
of using neither clothes, nor household-furni- 
ture, except what is our own growth and manu- 
facture: of utterly rejecting the materials and 
instruments that promote foreign luxury: of 



curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idle- 
ness, and gaming in our women ; of introducing 
a vein of parsimony, prudence, and temper- 
ance: of learning to love our country, in the 
want of which we differ even from Laplanders, 
and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: of quit- 
ting our animosities and factions, nor acting 
any longer like the Jews, who were murdering 
one another at the very moment their city was 
taken: of being a little cautious not to sell our 
country and conscience' for nothing: of teaching 
landlords to have at least one degree of mercy 
toward their tenants: lastly, of putting a spirit 
of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop- 
keepers; who, if a resolution could now be 
taken to buy only our native goods, would 
immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us 
in the price, the measure, and the goodness, 
nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair 
proposal of just dealing, though often and 
earnestly invited to it. 

Therefore 1 repeat, let no man talk to me of 
these and the like expedients, till he has at least 
some glimpse of hope, that there will be ever some 
hearty and sincere attempt to put them in practice. 

But, as to myself, having been wearied out 
for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary 
thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of 
success, 1 fortunately fell upon this proposal; 
which, as it is wholly new, so it has something 
solid and real, of no expense and little trouble, 
full in our own power, and whereby we can 
incur no danger in disobliging England. For 
this kind oi commodity will not bear exporta- 
tion, the flesh being of too tender a consistence 
to admit a long continuance in salt, although 
perhaps I could name a country, which would 
be glad to eat up our whole nation without it. 

After all, I am not SO violently bent upon my 
own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by 
wise men, which shall be \owm\ equally inno- 
cent, cheap, easy, and effectual. Hut before 
something of that kind shall be advanced in 
contradiction to mv scheme, and offering a 
better, I desire the author, or authors, will be 
pleased maturely to consider two points. First, 
as things now stand, how they will be able to 
find food and raiment for a hundred thousand 
useless mouths and backs. And, secondly, 
there being a round million of creatures in 
human figure throughout this kingdom, whose 
whole subsistence put into a common stock 
would leave them in debt two millions of 
pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars 
by profession, to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, 
and labourers, with the wives and children 



THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY 



197 



who are beggars in effect; I desire those poli- 
ticians who dislike my overture, and may 
perhaps be so bold as to attempt an answer, 
that they will first ask the parents of these 
mortals, whether they would not at this day 
think it a great happiness to have been sold for 
food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, 
and thereby have avoided such a perpetual 
scene of misfortunes, as they have since gone 
through, by the oppression of landlords, the 
impossibility of paying rent without money or 
trade, the want of common sustenance, with 
neither house nor clothes to cover them from 
the inclemencies of the weather, and the most 
inevitable prospect of entailing the like, or 
greater miseries, upon their breed for ever. 

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that 
I have not the least personal interest in endeav- 
ouring to promote this necessary work, having 
no other motive than the public good of my 
country, by advancing our trade, providing 
for infants, relieving the poor, and giving 
some pleasure to the rich. I have no children 
by which I can propose to get a single penny; 
the youngest being nine years old, and my 
wife past child-bearing. 

ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, 
THIRD EARL OF SHAFTES- 
BURY (1671-1713) 

CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN, MANNERS, 
OPINIONS, TIMES, ETC. 

FREEDOM OF WIT AND HUMOUR 

Part III. Section III 

You have heard it, my friend, as a common 
saying, that interest governs the world. But, 
I believe, whoever looks narrowly into the 
affairs of it will find that passion, humour, 
caprice, zeal, faction, and a thousand other 
springs, which are counter to self-interest, have 
as considerable a part in the movements of this 
machine. There are more wheels and counter- 
poises in this engine than are easily imagined. 
'Tis of too complex a kind to fall under one 
simple view, or be explained thus briefly in a 
word or two. The studiers of this mechanism 
must have a very partial eye to overlook all 
other motions besides those of the lowest and 
narrowest compass. 'Tis hard that in the plan 
or description of this clock-work no wheel or 
balance should be allowed on the side of the 
better and more enlarged affections; that 
nothing should be understood to be done in 
kindness or generosity, nothing in pure good- 



nature or friendship, or through any social or 
natural affection of any kind; when, perhaps, 
the mainsprings of this machine will be found 
to be either these very natural affections them- 
selves, or a compound kind derived from them, 
and retaining more than one half of their nature. 

But here, my friend, you must not expect 
that I should draw you up a formal scheme 
of the passions, or pretend to show you their 
genealogy and relation: how they are inter- 
woven with one another, or interfere with our 
happiness and interest. 'Twould be out of the 
genius and compass of such a letter as this, to 
frame a just plan or model by which you might, 
with an accurate view, observe what proportion 
the friendly and natural affections seem to 
bear in this order of architecture. 

Modern projectors, I know, would willingly 
rid their hands of these natural materials, and 
would fain build after a more uniform way. 
They would new-frame the human heart, and 
have a mighty fancy to reduce all its motions, 
balances, and weights, to that one principle 
and foundation of a cool and deliberate self- 
ishness. Men, it seems, are unwilling to 
think they can be so outwitted and imposed 
on by Nature, as to be made to serve her pur- 
poses rather than their own. They are ashamed 
to be drawn thus out of themselves, and forced 
from what they esteem their true interest. 

There has been in all times a sort of narrow- 
minded philosophers, who have thought to set 
this difference to rights by conquering Nature 
in themselves. A primitive father and founder 
among these, saw well this power of Nature, 
and understood it so far, that he earnestly 
exhorted his followers neither to beget children 
nor serve their country. There was no dealing 
with Nature, it seems, while these alluring 
objects stood in the way. Relations, friends, 
countrymen, laws, politic constitutions, the 
beauty of order and government, and the 
interest of society and mankind, were objects 
which, he well saw, would naturally raise a 
stronger affection than any which was grounded 
upon the narrow bottom of mere self. His 
advice, therefore, not to marry, nor engage at 
all in the public, was wise, and suitable to his 
design. There was no way to be truly a dis- 
ciple of this philosophy, but to leave family, 
friends, country, and society, to cleave to it. 
. . . And, in good earnest, who would not, 
if it were happiness to do so? — The phi- 
losopher, however, was kind in telling us his 
thought. 'Twas a token of his fatherly love 
of mankind — 



198 



JOSEPH ADDISON 



Tu pater, et rcrum inventor ! Tu patria nobis 
Suppcditas praecepta ! ' 

But the revivers of this philosophy in latter 
days appear to be of a lower genius. They 
seem to have understood less of this force of 
Nature, and thought to alter the thing by 
shifting a name. They would so explain all 
the social passions and natural affections as to 
denominate them of the selfish kind. Thus 
civility, hospitality, humanity towards strangers 
or people in distress, is only a more deliberate 
selfishness. An honest heart is only a more 
cunning one; and honesty and good-nature, 
a more deliberate or better-regulated self-love. 
The love of kindred, children and posterity, 
is purely love of self and of one's own immediate 
blood; as if, by this reckoning, all mankind 
were not included : all being of one blood, and 
joined by inter-marriages and alliances, as 
they have been transplanted in colonies and 
mixed one with another. And thus love of 
one's country and love of mankind must also 
be self-love. Magnanimity and courage, no 
doubt, are modifications of this universal self- 
love! For courage, says our modern philoso- 
pher, is constant anger; and all men, says a 
witty poet, would be cowards if they durst. 

That the poet and the philosopher both were 
cowards, may be yielded perhaps without dis- 
pute. They may have spoken the best of their 
knowledge. But for true courage, it has so 
little to do with anger, that there lies always 
the strongest suspicion against it where this 
passion is highest. The true courage is the 
cool and calm. The bravest of men have the 
least of a brutal bullying insolence; and in the 
very time of danger are found the most serene, 
pleasant, and free. Rage, we know, can make 
a coward forget himself and tight. But what 
is done in fury or anger can never be placed to 
the account of courage. Were it otherwise, 
womankind might claim to be the stoutest sex; 
for their hatred and anger have ever been al- 
lowed the strongest and most lasting. 

Other authors there have been of a yet in- 
ferior kind: a sort of distributors and petty 
retailers of this wit, who have run changes, and 
divisions without end, upon this article of self- 
love. You have the very same thought spun 
out a hundred ways, and drawn into mottoes 
and devices to set forth this riddle, that "act 
as disinterestedly or generously as you please, 
self still is at the bottom, and nothing else." 

1 Thou, father and beginner of things, do thou give 
us fatherly counsels. 



Now if these gentlemen who delight so much in 
the play of words, but are cautious how they 
grapple closely with definitions, would tell us 
only what self-interest was, and determine 
happiness and good, there would be an end of 
this enigmatical wit. For in this we should all 
agree, that happiness was to be pursued, and in 
fact was always sought after ; but whether found 
in following Nature, and giving way to common 
affection, or in suppressing it, and turning every 
passion towards private advantage, a narrow 
self-end, or the preservation of mere life, this 
would be the matter in debate between us. The 
question would not be, "who loved himself, or 
who not," but "who loved and served himself 
the rightest, and after the truest manner." 

'Tis the height of wisdom, no doubt, to be 
rightly selfish. And to value life, as far as life 
is good, belongs as much to courage as to dis- 
cretion; but a wretched life is no wise man's 
wish. To be without honesty is, in effect, 
to be without natural affection or sociableness 
of any kind. And a life without natural af- 
fection, friendship, or sociableness would be 
found a wretched one were it to be tried. 'Tis 
as these feelings and affections are intrinsically 
valuable and worthy that self-interest is to be 
rated and esteemed. A man is by nothing so 
much himself as by his temper and the char- 
acter of his passions and affections. If he 
loses what is manly and worthy in these, he is 
as much lost to himself as when he loses his 
memory and understanding. The least step 
into villainy or baseness changes the character 
and value of a life. He who would preserve 
life at any rate must abuse himself more than 
any one can abuse him. And if life be not a 
dear thing indeed, he who has refused to live 
a villain and has preferred death to a base 
action has been a gainer by the bargain. 

JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719) 

THE SPECTATOR 

NO. 10. MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1711 

Non alitcr quant qui adverso VtX lluminc lembum 
Remigiis subigit: si brachia forte rem is it, 

Atquc ilium in pnieccps prono rapit alveus timni. 1 

— VlRG. 

It is with much satisfaction that I hear this 
great city inquiring day by day after these my 

1 So the boat's brawny crew the current stem, 
And, slow advancing, struggle with the stream; 
But if they slack their hands or cease to strive, 
Then down the flood with headlong haste they 
drive. — Dryden. 



THE SPECTATOR 



199 



papers, and receiving my morning lectures 
with a becoming seriousness and attention. 
My publisher tells me, that there are already 
three thousand of them distributed every day: 
So that if I allow twenty readers to every paper, 
which I look upon as a modest computation, 
I may reckon about threescore thousand 
disciples in London and Westminster, who I 
hope will take care to distinguish themselves 
from the thoughtless herd of their ignorant and 
unattentive brethren. Since I have raised to 
myself so great an audience, I shall spare no 
pains to make their instruction agreeable, and 
their diversion useful. For which reasons I 
shall endeavour to enliven morality with wit, 
and to temper wit with morality, that my 
readers may, if possible, both ways find their 
account in the speculation of the day. And 
to the end that their virtue and discretion may 
not be short transient intermitting starts of 
thoughts, I have resolved to refresh their 
memories from day to day, till I have recovered 
them out of that desperate state of vice and 
folly into which the age is fallen. The mind 
that lies fallow but a single day, sprouts up 
in follies that are only to be killed by a con- 
stant and assiduous culture. It was said of 
Socrates, that he brought philosophy down from 
heaven, to inhabit among men; and I shall be 
ambitious to have it said of me, that I have 
brought philosophy out of closets and libra- 
ries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs 
and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee- 
houses. 

I would therefore in a very particular manner 
recommend these my speculations to all well- 
regulated families, that set apart an hour in 
every morning for tea and bread and butter; 
and would earnestly advise them for their good 
to order this paper to be punctually served up, 
and to be looked upon as a part of the tea 
equipage. 

Sir Francis Bacon observes, that a well- 
written book, compared with its rivals and 
antagonists, is like Moses's serpent, that im- 
mediately swallowed up and devoured those 
of the Egyptians. I shall not be so vain as to 
think, that where the Spectator appears, the 
other public prints will vanish; But shall 
leave it to my reader's consideration, whether, 
Is it not much better to be let into the 
knowledge of one's self, than to hear what 
passes in Muscovy or Poland ; and to amuse 
ourselves with such writings as tend to 
the wearing out of ignorance, passion, and 
prejudice, than such as naturally conduce 



to inflame hatreds, and make enmities irrecon- 
cileable? 

In the next place, I would recommend this 
paper to the daily perusal of those gentlemen 
whom I cannot but consider as my good 
brothers and allies, I mean the fraternity of 
Spectators, who live in the world without having 
anything to do in it; and either by the affluence 
of their fortunes, or laziness of their dispositions, 
have no other business with the rest of man- 
kind, but to look upon them. Under this class 
of men are comprehended all contemplative 
tradesmen, titular physicians, Fellows of the 
Royal -society, Templars that are not given to 
be contentious, and statesmen that are out of 
business; in short, everyone that considers the 
world as a theatre, and desires to form a right 
judgment of those who arc the actors on it. 

There is another set of men that I must like- 
wise lay a claim to, whom I have lately called 
the blanks of society, as being altogether un- 
furnished with ideas, till the business and con- 
versation of the day has supplied them. I have 
often considered these poor souls with an eye 
of great commiseration, when I have heard 
them asking the first man they have met with, 
whether there was any news stirring? and by 
that means gathering together materials for 
thinking. These needy persons do not know 
what to talk of, till about twelve a clock in the 
morning; for by that time they are pretty good 
judges of the weather, know which way the 
wind sits, and whether the Dutch mail be come 
in. As they lie at the mercy of the first man 
they meet, and are grave or impertinent all the 
day long, according to the notions which they 
have imbibed in the morning, I would earnestly 
entreat them not to stir out of their chambers 
till they have read this paper, and do promise 
them that I will daily instil into them such sound 
and wholesome sentiments, as shall have a good 
effect on their conversation for the ensuing 
twelve hours. 

But there are none to whom this paper will 
be more useful, than to the female world. 
I have often thought there has not been suffi- 
cient pains taken in finding out proper employ- 
ments and diversions for the fair ones. Their 
amusements seem contrived for them, rather 
as they are women, than as they are reason- 
able creatures; and are more adapted to the 
sex than to the species. The toilet is their 
great scene of business, and the right adjusting 
of their hair the principal employment of their 
lives. The sorting of a suit of ribbons is reck- 
oned a very good morning's work; and if they 



200 



JOSEPH ADDISON 



make an excursion to a mercer's or a toy -shop, 
so great a fatigue makes them unfit for any thing 
else all the day after. Their more serious occu- 
pations are sewing and embroidery, and their 
greatest drudgery the preparation of jellies 
and sweet-meats. This, I say, is the state of 
ordinary women; though I know there are 
multitudes of those of a more elevated life and 
conversation, that move in an exalted sphere 
of knowledge and virtue, that join all the 
beauties of the mind to the ornaments of dress, 
and inspire a kind of awe and respect, as well 
as love, into their male beholders. I hope to 
encrease the number of these by publishing 
this daily paper, which I shall always endeav- 
our to make an innocent if not an improving 
entertainment, and by that means at least 
divert the minds of my female readers from 
greater trifles. At the same time, as I would 
fain give some finishing touches to those which 
are already the most beautiful pieces in human 
nature, I shall endeavour to point out all those 
imperfections that are the blemishes, as well 
as those virtues which are the embellishments 
of the sex. In the meanwhile I hope these my 
gentle readers, who have so much time on their 
hands, will not grudge throwing away a quarter 
of an hour in a day on this paper, since they 
may do it without any hindrance to business. 
I know several of my friends and well-wishers 
are in great pain for me, lest I should not be 
able to keep up the spirit of a paper which I 
oblige myself to furnish every day: But to 
make them easy in this particular, I will promise 
them faithfully to give it over as soon as I 
grow dull. This I know will be matter of great 
raillery to the small Wits; who will frequently 
put me in mind of my promise, desire me to 
keep my word, assure me that it is high time 
to give over, with many other little pleasantries 
of the like nature, which men of a little smart 
genius cannot forbear throwing out against 
their best friends, when they have such a handle 
given them of being witty. But let them re- 
member that I do hereby enter my caveat 
against this piece of raillery. 

THOUGHTS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
NO. 26. FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1711 

Pallida mors aequo pulsal pede pauperum tabernas 

Regumque turns, () beate Sexii. 
Vitae summa brevis spent nos veto/ inchoate longam, 

Jam te premet uox, fabulaeque manes, 
Et domns e.xi/is Plutonia. 

— HoR. i. Od. iv. 13. 



With equal foot, rich friend, impartial fate 
Knocks at the cottage, and the palace gate: 
Life's span forbids thee to extend thy cares, 
And stretch thy hopes beyond thy years: 
Night soon will seize, and you must quickly go 
To story 'd ghosts, and Pluto's house below. 

When I am in a serious humour, I very often 
walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where 
the gloominess of the place, and the use to 
which it is applied, with the solemnity of the 
building, and the condition of the people who 
lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of 
melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is 
not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole 
afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and 
the church, amusing myself with the tomb- 
stones and inscriptions that I met with in those 
several regions of the dead. Most of them 
recorded nothing else of the buried person, 
but that he was born upon one day, and died 
upon another: the whole history of his life 
being comprehended in those two circumstances 
that are common to all mankind. I could not 
but look upon these registers of existence, 
whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire 
upon the departed persons; who left no other 
memorial of them, but that they were born, 
and that they died. They put me in mind of 
several persons mentioned in the battles of 
heroic poems, who have sounding names given 
them, for no other reason but that they may 
be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but 
being knocked on the head. 

" rAauicdi' Te MeSdi'Ta Te ®ep<Ti\o\6v Te." 

— Hom. 

" Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque." 

— VlRG. 

"Glaucus, and Mcdon, and Thcrsilochus." 

The life of these men is finely described in 
Holy Writ by "the path of an arrow," which is 
immediately closed up and lost. 

Upon my going into the church, I entertained 
myself with the digging of a grave; and saw 
in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, 
the fragment of a bone or skull intermixed with 
a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time 
or other had a place in the composition of an 
human body. Upon this I began to consider 
with myself, what innumerable multitudes of 
people lay confused together under the pave- 
ment of that ancient cathedral; how men and 
women, friends and enemies, priests and 
soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were 
crumbled amongst one another, and blended 



THE SPECTATOR 



20I 



together in the same common mass; how 
beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, 
weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished 
in the same promiscuous heap of matter. 

After having thus surveyed this great maga- 
zine of mortality, as it were in the lump, I ex- 
amined it more particularly by the accounts 
which I found on several of the monuments 
which are raised in every quarter of that ancient 
fabric. Some of them were covered with such 
extravagant epitaphs, that if it were possible 
for the dead person to be acquainted with them, 
he would blush at the praises which his friends 
have bestowed on him. There are others so 
excessively modest, that they deliver the char- 
acter of the person departed in Greek or He- 
brew, and by that means are not understood 
once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quar- 
ter, I found there were poets who had no monu- 
ments, and monuments which had no poets. 
I observed, indeed, that the present war had 
filled the church with many of these unin- 
habited monuments, which had been erected 
to the memory of persons whose bodies were, 
perhaps, buried in the plains of Blenheim, or 
in the bosom of the ocean. 

I could not but be very much delighted with 
several modern epitaphs, which are written with 
great elegance of expression and justness of 
thought, and therefore do honour to the living 
as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very 
apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or 
politeness of a nation from the turn of their 
public monuments and inscriptions, they should 
be submitted to the perusal of men of learning 
and genius before they are put in execution. 
Sir Cloudesley Shovel's monument has very 
often given me great offence. Instead of the 
brave, rough, English admiral, which was the 
distinguishing character of that plain, gallant 
man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure 
of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and repos- 
ing himself upon velvet cushions under a can- 
opy of state. The inscription is answerable 
to the monument; for, instead of celebrating 
the many remarkable actions he had performed 
in the service of his country, it acquaints us 
only with the manner of his death, in which it 
was impossible for him to reap any honour. 
The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for 
want of genius, show an infinitely greater taste 
of antiquity and politeness in their buildings 
and works of this nature, than what we meet 
with in those of our own country. The monu- 
ments of their admirals, which have been erected 
at the public expense, represent them like them- 



selves, and are adorned with rostral crowns 
and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons 
of sea-weed, shells, and coral. 

But to return to our subject. I have left the 
repository of our English kings for the con- 
templation of another day, when I shall find 
my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. 
I know that entertainments of this nature are 
apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timor- 
ous minds and gloomy imaginations; but for 
my own part, though I am always serious, I do 
not know what it is to be melancholy; and can 
therefore take a view of nature in her deep and 
solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her 
most gay and delightful ones. By this means I 
can improve myself with those objects, which 
others consider with terror. When I look 
upon the tombs of the great, every emotion 
of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs 
of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes 
out ; when I meet with the grief of parents upon 
a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion : 
when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, 
I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom 
we must quickly follow. When I see kings 
lying by those who deposed them, when I con- 
sider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy 
men that divided the world with their contests 
and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonish- 
ment on the little competitions, factions, and 
debates of mankind. When I read the several 
dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, 
and some six hundred years ago, I consider that 
great day when we shall all of us be contem- 
poraries, and make our appearance together. 

THE HEAD-DRESS 
NO. 98. FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1711 

Tanta est quaerendi cura decoris. 

— Juv. Sat. vi. 500. 

So studiously their persons they adorn. 

There is not so variable a thing in nature as 
a lady's head-dress. Within my own memory 
I have known it rise and fall above thirty 
degrees. About ten years ago it shot up to a 
very great height, insomuch that the female 
part of our species were much taller than the 
men. The women were of such an enormous 
stature, that "we appeared as grasshoppers 
before them;" at present the whole sex is in a 
manner dwarfed, and shrunk into a race of 
beauties that seems almost another species. 
I remember several ladies, who were once very 



202 



JOSEPH ADDISON 



near seven foot high, that at present want some 
inches of five. How they came to be thus cur- 
tailed I cannot learn. Whether the whole sex 
be at present under any penance which we 
know nothing of; or whether they have cast 
their head-dresses in order to surprise us with 
something in that kind which shall he entirely 
new; or whether some of the tallest of the sex, 
being too cunning for the rest, have contrived 
this method to make themselves appear size- 
able, is still a secret; though I find most are 
of opinion, they an' at present like trees new 

lopped and pruned, that will certainly sprout up 

and llourish with greater heads than before, for 
my own part, as I do not love to be insulted by 
women who are taller than myself, 1 admire the 
sex much more in their present humiliation, 
which has reduced them to their natural di- 
mensions, than when they had extended their 
persons and lengthened themselves out into 
formidable and gigantic figures. 1 am not for 
adding to the beautiful edifices of nature, nor 
for raising any whimsical superstructure upon 
her plans: I must therefore repeat it, that I 
am highly pleased with the coiffure now in 
fashion, and think it shows the good sense which 
at present very much reigns among the valuable 
part of the sex. One may observe that women 
in all ages have taken more pains than men to 
adorn the outside of their heads; and indeed 
I very much admire, that those female archi- 
tects who raise such wonderful structures out of 
ribands, lace, and wire, have not been recorded 
for their respective inventions. Tt is certain 
there have been as many orders in these kinds of 
building, as in those which have been made of 
marble. Sometimes they rise in the shape of a 
pyramid, sometimes like a tower, and some- 
times like a steeple. In Juvenal's time the 
building grew by several orders and stories, 
as he has very humorously described it : 

"Tot premit ordinibus, tot adhuc compagibus ahum 
Aedilicat caput: Andromachen a fronte videbis; 
Post minor est: aliam credas." 

— JtJV. Sot, vi. 501. 

"With curls on curls they build her head before, 

And mount it with a formidable tower: 

\ giantess she seems-, but look behind, 
And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind." 

But I do not remember in any part of my 
reading, that the head-dress aspired to so great 
an extravagance as in the fourteenth century; 
when it was built up in a couple of cones or 
spires, which stood so excessively high on each 



side of the head, that a woman, who was but a 
Pigmy without her head-dress, appeared like 
a Colossus upon putting it on. Monsieur 
Paradin says, "That these old-fashioned fon- 
tanges rose an ell above the head; that they 
weie pointed like steeples; and had long loose 
pieces of crape fastened to the tops of. them, 
which were curiously fringed, and hung down 
their backs like streamers." 

The women might possibly have carried this 
Gothic building much higher, had not a famous 
monk, Thomas Conecte by name, attacked it 
with great zeal and resolution. This holy man 
travelled from place to place to preach down 
this monstrous commode; and succeeded so 
well in it, that, as the magicians sacrificed their 
books to the flames upon the preaching of an 
apostle, many of the women threw down their 
head-dresses in the middle of his sermon, and 
made a bonfire of them within sight of the pul- 
pit. He was so renowned, as well for the 
sanctity of his life as his manner of preaching, 
thai he had often a congregation of twenty 
thousand people; the men placing themselves 
on the one side of his pulpit, and the women 
on the other, that appeared (to use the simili- 
tude of an ingenious writer) like a forest of 
cedars with their heads reaching to the clouds. 
He so warmed and animated the people against 
this monstrous ornament, that it lay under a 
kind of persecution ; and, whenever it appeared 
in public, was pelted down by the rabble, who 
llung stones at the persons that wore it. But 
notwithstanding this prodigy vanished while 
the preacher was among them, it began to ap- 
pear again some months after his departure, 
or, to tell it in Monsieur Paradin's own words, 
"the women, that like snails in a fright had 
drawn in their horns, shot them out again as 
soon as the danger was over." This extrava- 
gance of the women's head-dresses in that age 
is taken notice of by Monsieur d'Argentre in 
his History of Bretagne, and by other historians, 
as well as the person I have here quoted. 

It is usually observed, that a good reign is 
the only proper time for the making of laws 
against the exorbitance of power; in the same 
maimer an excessive head-dress may be attacked 
the most effectually when the fashion is against 
it. I do therefore recommend this paper to 
my female readers by way of prevention. 

1 would desire the fair sex to consider how 
impossible it is for them to add anything that 
can be ornamental to what is already the 
masterpiece of nature. The head has the 
most beautiful appearance, as well as the high- 



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203 



est station, in a human figure. Nature has 
laid out all her art in beautifying the face ; she 
has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a 
double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles 
and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with 
the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side 
with the curious organs of sense, giving it airs 
and graces that cannot be described, and sur- 
rounded it with such a flowing shade of hair 
as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable 
light. In short, she seems to have designed the 
head as the cupola to the most glorious of her 
works; and when we load it with such a pile 
of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the 
symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly 
contrive to call off the eye from great and 
real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribands, and 
bone-lace. 

THE VISION OF MIRZA 

NO. 159. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1711 

Omnem, quae nunc obducta tucnti 
Mortales hebetat visus tibi, el humida circum 
Caligat, nubcm eripiam . . . 

— ViRG. Aen. ii. 604. 

The cloud, which, intercepting the clear light, 
Hangs o'er thy eyes, and blunts thy mortal sight, 
I will remove . . . 

When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up 
several Oriental manuscripts, which I have 
still by me. Among others I met with one 
entitled "The Visions of Mirza," which I have 
read over with great pleasure. I intend to give 
it to the public when I have no other enter- 
tainment for them; and shall begin with the 
first vision, which I have translated word for 
word as follows : 

"On the fifth day of the moon, which accord- 
ing to the custom of my forefathers I always 
keep holy, after having washed myself, and 
offered up my morning devotions, I ascended 
the high hills of Bagdad, in order to pass the 
rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As 
I was here airing myself on the tops of the moun- 
tains, I fell into a profound contemplation on 
the vanity of human life; and passing from 
one thought to another, 'Surely,' said I, 'man 
is but a shadow, and life a dream.' Whilst 
I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the 
summit of a rock that was not far from me, 
where I discovered one in the habit of a shep- 
herd, with a musical instrument in his hand. 
As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, 



and began to play upon it. The sound of it 
was exceedingly sweet, and wrought into a 
variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melo- 
dious, and altogether different from anything 
I had ever heard. They put me in mind of 
those heavenly airs that are played to the de- 
parted souls of good men upon their first arrival 
in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of their 
last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures 
of that happy place. My heart melted away 
in secret raptures. 

"I had been often told that the rock before 
me was the haunt of a Genius; and that several 
had been entertained with music who had 
passed by it, but never heard that the musician 
had before made himself visible. When he 
had raised my thoughts by those transporting 
airs which he played to taste the pleasures of his 
conversation, as I looked upon him like one 
astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the 
waving of his hand directed me to approach 
the place where he sat. I drew near with that 
reverence which is due to a superior nature; 
and as my heart was entirely subdued by the 
captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at 
his feet and wept. The Genius smiled upon 
me with a look of compassion and affability 
that familiarized him to my imagination, and 
at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions 
with which I approached him. He lifted me 
from the ground, and taking me by the hand, 
'Mirza,'' said he, T have heard thee in thy 
soliloquies; follow me.' 

"He then led me to the highest pinnacle of 
the rock, and placing me on the top of it, 'Cast 
thy eyes eastward,' said he, 'and tell me what 
thou seest.' 'I see,' said I, 'a huge valley, and 
a prodigious tide of water rolling through it.' 
'The valley that thou seest,' said he, 'is the Vale 
of Misery, and the tide of water that thou seest 
is part of the great Tide of Eternity.' 'What 
is the reason,' said I, 'that the tide I see rises 
out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses 
itself in a thick mist at the other?' 'What 
thou seest,' said he, ' is that portion of eternity 
which is called time, measured out by the sun, 
and reaching from the beginning of the world 
to its consummation. Examine now,' said he, 
'this sea that is bounded with darkness at both 
ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it.' 
'I see a bridge,' said I, 'standing in the midst 
of the tide.' 'The bridge thou seest,' said he, 
' is Human Life : consider it attentively. ' Upon 
a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it con- 
sisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with 
several broken arches, which added to those 



204 



JOSEPH ADDISON 



that were entire, made up the number about a 
hundred. As I was counting the arches, the 
Genius told me that this bridge consisted at 
first of a thousand arches; but that a great 
flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge 
in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. 'But 
tell me farther,' said he, 'what thou discoverest 
on it.' 'I see multitudes of people passing over 
it,' said I, 'and a black cloud hanging on each 
end of it.' As I looked more attentively, I 
saw several of the passengers dropping through 
the bridge into the great tide that flowed under- 
neath it; and upon farther examination, per- 
ceived there were innumerable trap-doors that 
lay concealed in the bridge, which the pas- 
sengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell 
through them into the tide, and immediately 
disappeared. These hidden pit -falls were set 
very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that 
throngs of people no sooner broke through the 
cloud, but many of them fell into them. They 
grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied 
and lay closer together towards the end of the 
arches that were entire. 

"There were indeed some persons, but their 
number was very small, that continued a kind 
of hobbling march on the broken arches, but. 
fell through one after another, being quite tired 
and spent witli so long a walk. 

"I passed some time in the contemplation of 
this wonderful structure, and the great variety 
of objects which it presented. My heart was 
filled with a deep melancholy to see several 
dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth 
and jollity, and catching at everything that 
stood by them to save themselves. Some were 
looking up towards the heavens in a thought- 
ful posture, and in the midst of a speculation 
stumbled and fell out of sight. Multitudes were 
very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glit- 
tered in their eyes and danced before them; 
but often when they thought themselves within 
the reach of them, their footing failed and down 
they sunk. In this confusion of objects, I 
observed some with scimitars in their hands, 
and others with urinals, who ran to and fro 
upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on 
trap doors which did not seem to lie in their 
way, and which they might have escaped had 
they not been thus forced upon them. 

"The Genius seeing me indulge myself on 
this melancholy prospect, told me I had dwelt 
long enough upon it. 'Take thine eyes off 
the bridge,' said he, 'and tell me if thou yet 
seest anything thou dost not comprehend.' 
Upon looking up, 'What mean,' said I, 'those 



great flights of birds that are perpetually hover- 
ing about the bridge, and settling upon it from 
time to time? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, 
cormorants, and among many other feathered 
creatures several little winged boys, that perch 
in great numbers upon the middle arches.' 
'These,' said the Genius, 'are Envy, Avarice, 
Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like cares 
and passions that infest human life.' 

"I here fetched a deep sigh. 'Alas,' said I, 
' Man was made in vain ! how is he given away 
to misery and mortality ! tortured in life, and 
swallowed up in death!' The Genius being 
moved with compassion towards me, bid me 
quit so uncomfortable a prospect. 'Look no 
more,' said he, 'on man in the first stage of his 
existence, in his setting out for eternity; but 
cast thine eye on that thick mist into which the 
tide bears the several generations of mortals 
that fall into it.' I directed my sight as I was 
ordered, and (whether or no the good Genius 
strengthened it with any supernatural force, 
or dissipated part of the mist that was before 
too thick for the eye to penetrate) I saw the 
valley opening at the farther end, and spreading 
forth into an immense ocean, that had a huge 
rock of adamant running through the midst 
of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. The 
clouds still rested on one half of it, insomuch 
that I could discover nothing in it; but the 
other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with 
innumerable islands, that were covered with 
fruits and flowers, and interwoven with a thou- 
sand little shining seas that ran among them. 
I could see persons dressed inglorious habits 
with garlands upon their heads, passing among 
the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains, 
or resting on beds of flowers; and could hear 
a confused harmony of singing birds, falling 
waters, human voices, and musical instruments. 
Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so 
delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an 
eagle, that I might fly away to those happy 
seats; but the Genius told me there was no 
passage to them except through the gates of 
death that I saw opening every moment upon 
the bridge. 'The islands,' said he, 'that lie 
so fresh and green before thee, and with which 
the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as 
far as thou canst see, are more in number than 
the sands on the sea -shore: there are myriads 
of islands behind those which thou here dis- 
coverest, reaching farther than thine eye, or 
even thine imagination can extend itself. 
These are the mansions of good men after 
death, who, according to the degree and kinds 



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205 



of virtue in which they excelled, are distributed 
among these several islands, which abound with 
pleasures of different kinds and degrees, suit- 
able to the relishes and perfections of those 
who are settled in them: every island is a para- 
dise accommodated to its respective inhabit- 
ants. Are not these, O Mirza, habitations 
worth contending for? Does life appear mis- 
erable that gives thee opportunities of earning 
such a reward ? Is death to be feared that will 
convey thee to so happy an existence? Think 
not man was made in vain, who has such an 
eternity reserved for him.' I gazed with in- 
expressible pleasure on these happy islands. 
At length, said I, 'Show me now, I beseech thee, 
the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds 
which cover the ocean on the other side of the 
rock of adamant.' The Genius making me no 
answer, I turned me about to address myself to 
him a second time, but I found that he had left 
me; I then turned again to the vision which 
I had been so long contemplating; but instead 
of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the 
happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hol- 
low valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, and 
camels grazing upon the sides of it." 

HILPA AND SHALUM 

NO. 584. MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1714 

Hie gelidi fontes, hie mollia prata, Lycori, 
Hie nemus, hie toto tecum consumerer aevo. 

— ViRG. Eel. x. 42. 

Come see what pleasures ill our plains abound; 
The woods, the fountains, and the flow'ry ground, 
Here I could live, and love, and die, with only you. 

Hilpa was one of the hundred and fifty 
daughters of Zilpah, of the race of Cohu, by 
whom some of the learned think is meant Cain. 
She was exceedingly beautiful; and, when she 
was but a girl of threescore and ten years of 
age, received the addresses of several who made 
love to her. Among these were two brothers, 
Harpath and Shalum. Harpath, being the first- 
born, was master of that fruitful region which 
lies at the foot of Mount Tirzah, in the southern 
parts of China. Shalum (which is to say the 
planter in the Chinese language) possessed all 
the neighbouring hills, and that great range of 
mountains which goes under the name of Tir- 
zah. Harpath was of a haughty contemptuous 
spirit; Shalum was of a gentle disposition, 
beloved both by God and man. 

It is said, that among the antediluvian wo- 
men, the daughters of Cohu had their minds 
wholly set upon riches; for which reason the 



beautiful Hilpa preferred Harpath to Shalum, 
because of his numerous flocks and herds that 
covered all the low country which runs along 
the foot of Mount Tirzah, and is watered by 
several fountains and streams breaking out of 
the sides of that mountain. 

Harpath made so quick a despatch of his 
courtship, that he married Hilpa in the hun- 
dredth year of her age; and, being of an in- 
solent temper, laughed to scorn his brother 
Shalum for having pretended to the beautiful 
Hilpa, when he was master of nothing but a 
long chain of rocks and mountains. This so 
much provoked Shalum, that he is said to have 
cursed his brother in the bitterness of his heart, 
and to have prayed that one of his mountains 
might fall upon his head if ever he came within 
the shadow of it. 

From this time forward Harpath would never 
venture out of the valleys, but came to an un- 
timely end in the two hundred and fiftieth 
year of his age, being drowned in a river as he 
attempted to cross it. This river is called to 
this day, from his name who perished in it, the 
river Harpath: and, what is very remarkable, 
issues out of one of those mountains which 
Shalum wished might fall upon his brother, 
when he cursed him in the bitterness of his 
heart. 

Hilpa was in the hundred and sixtieth year 
of her age at the death of her husband, having 
brought him but fifty children before he was 
snatched away, as has been already related. 
Many of the antediluvians made love to the 
young widow; though no one was thought so 
likely to succeed in her affections as her first 
lover Shalum, who renewed his court to her 
about ten years after the death of Harpath; 
for it was not thought decent in those days that 
a widow should be seen by a man within ten 
years after the decease of her husband. 

Shalum falling into a deep melancholy, and 
resolving to take away that objection which had 
been raised against him when he made his first 
addresses to Hilpa, began, immediately after 
her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that 
mountainous region which fell to his lot in the 
division of this country. He knew how to 
adapt every plant to its proper soil, and is 
thought to have inherited many traditional 
secrets of that art from the first man. This 
employment turned at length to his profit as 
well as to his amusement; his mountains were 
in a few years shaded with young trees, that 
gradually shot up into groves, woods, and for- 
ests, intermixed with walks, and lawns, and gar- 



2o6 



JOSEPH ADDISON 



dens; insomuch that the whole region, from 
a naked and desolate prospect, began now to 
look like a second Paradise. The pleasant- 
ness of the place, and the agreeable disposition 
of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the mildest 
and wisest of all who lived before the flood, 
drew into it multitudes of people, who were 
perpetually employed in the sinking of wells, 
the digging of trenches, and the hollowing of 
trees, for the better distribution of water through 
every part of this spacious plantation. 

The habitations of Shalum looked every year 
more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after 
the space of seventy autumns, was wonderfully 
pleased with the distant prospect of Shalum's 
hills, which were then covered with innumer- 
able tufts of trees and gloomy scenes, that gave 
a magnificence to the place, and converted it 
into one of the finest landscapes the eye of 
man could behold. 

The Chinese record a letter which Shalum 
is said to have written to Hilpa in the eleventh 
year of her widowhood. I shall here translate 
it, without departing from that noble simplicity 
of sentiment and plainness of manners which 
appears in the original. 

Shalum was at this time one hundred and 
eighty years old, and Hilpa one hundred and 
seventy. 

"Shalum, Master of Mount Tirzah, to Hilpa, 
Mistress of the Valleys 

"In the 788th year of the creation. 
"What have I not suffered, O thou daughter 
of Zilpah, since thou gavest thyself away in mar- 
riage to my rival ! I grew weary of the light 
of the sun, and have been ever since covering 
myself with woods and forests. These three- 
score and ten years have I bewailed the loss 
of thee on the top of Mount Tirzah, and soothed 
my melancholy among a thousand gloomy 
shades of my own raising. My dwellings are 
at present as the garden of God; every part 
of them is filled with fruits, and flowers, and 
fountains. The whole mountain is perfumed 
for thy reception. Come up into it, O my 
beloved, and let us people this spot of the new 
world with a beautiful race of mortals; let us 
multiply exceedingly among these delightful 
shades, and fill every quarter of them with 
sons and daughters. Remember, O thou 
daughter of Zilpah, that the age of man is but 
a thousand years; that beauty is the admira- 
tion but of a few centuries. It flourishes as a 
mountain oak, or as a cedar on the top of Tir- 
zah, which in three or four hundred years will 



fade away, and never be thought of by pos- 
terity, unless a young wood springs from its 
roots. Think well on this, and remember thy 
neighbour in the mountains." 

Having here inserted this letter, which I 
look upon as the only antediluvian billet-doux 
now extant, I shall in my next paper give the 
answer to it, and the sequel of this story. 

NO. 585. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1714 

Ipsi lactitia voces ad sidera jactant 
Intonsi monies: ipsac jam carmina rupes, 
Ipsa sonant arbusta. 

— Virg. Eel. v. 62. 

The mountain tops unshorn, the rocks rejoice; 
The lowly shrubs partake of human voice. 

The Sequel of the Story of Shalum and 
Hilpa 

The letter inserted in my last had so good an 
effect upon Hilpa, that she answered in less 
than a twelvemonth, after the following man- 
ner: 

"Hilpa, Mistress of the Valleys, to Shalum, 
Master of Mount Tirzah 

"In the 789th year of the creation. 

"What have I to do with thee, O Shalum? 
Thou praisest Hilpa's beauty, but art thou not 
secretly enamoured with the verdure of her 
meadows? Art thou not more affected with 
the prospect of her green valleys than thou 
wouldest be with the sight of her person? 
The lowings of my herds and the bleat ings of 
my flocks make a pleasant echo in thy moun- 
tains, and sound sweetly in thy ears. What 
though I am delighted with the wavings of thy 
forests, and those breezes of perfumes which 
flow from the top of Tirzah, are these like 
the riches of the valley? 

"I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more 
wise and happy than any of the sons of men. 
Thy dwellings are among the cedars; thou 
searchest out the diversity of soils, thou under- 
standest the influences of the.stars, and markest 
the change of seasons. Can a woman appear 
lovely in the eyes of such a one? Disquiet 
me not, O Shalum; let me alone, that I may 
enjoy those goodly possession^, which are fallen 
to my lot. Win me not by thy enticing words. 
May thy trees increase and multiply! mayest 
thou add wood to wood, and shade to shade ! 
but tempt not Hilpa to destroy thy solitude, 
and make thy retirement populous." 

The Chinese say that a little time afterwards 



SIR RICHARD STEELE 



207 



she accepted of a treat in oife of the neighbour- 
ing hills to which Shalum had invited her. 
This treat lasted for two years, and is said "to 
have cost Shalum five hundred antelopes, two 
thousand ostriches, and a thousand tun of 
milk; but what most of all recommended it, 
was that variety of delicious fruits and pot- 
herbs, in which no person then living could 
any way equal Shalum. 

He treated her in the bower which he had 
planted amidst the wood of nightingales. The 
wood was made up of such fruit-trees and plants 
as are most agreeable to the several kinds of 
singing-birds; so that it had drawn into it all 
the music of the country, and was filled from 
one end of the year to the other with the most 
agreeable concert in season. 

He showed her every day some beautiful 
and surprising scene in this new region of wood- 
lands; and, as by this means he had all the 
opportunities he could wish for, of opening 
his mind to her, he succeeded so well, that upon 
her departure she made him a kind of promise, 
and gave him her word to return him a positive 
answer in less than fifty years. 

She had not been long among her own people 
in the valleys, when she received new over- 
tures, and at the same time a most splendid 
visit from Mishpach, who was a mighty man 
of old, and had built a great city, which he 
called after his own name. Every house was 
made for at least a thousand years, nay, there 
were some that were leased out for three lives; 
so that the quantity of stone and timber con- 
sumed in this building is scarce to be imagined 
by those who live in the present age of the 
world. This great man entertained her with 
the voice of musical instruments which had 
been lately invented, and danced before her 
to the sound of the timbrel. He also presented 
her with several domestic utensils wrought in 
brass and iron, which had been newly found 
out for the conveniency of life. In the mean- 
time Shalum grew very uneasy with himself, 
and was sorely displeased at Hilpa for the re- 
ception which she had given to Mishpach, in- 
somuch that he never wrote to her or spoke 
of her during a whole revolution of Saturn; 
but, finding that this intercourse went no farther 
than a visit, he again renewed his addresses to 
her; who, during his long silence, is said very 
often to have cast a wishing eye upon Mount 
Tirzah. 

Her mind continued wavering about twenty 
years longer between Shalum and Mishpach; 
for though her inclinations favoured the 



former, her interest pleaded very powerfully 
for the other. While her heart was in this 
unsettled condition, the following accident 
happened, which determined her choice. A 
high tower of wood that stood in the city of 
Mishpach having caught fire by a flash of 
lightning, in a few days reduced the whole 
town to ashes. Mishpach resolved to rebuild 
the place, whatever it should cost him: and, 
having already destroyed all the timber of 
the country, he was forced to have recourse to 
Shalum, whose forests were now two hundred 
years old. He purchased these woods with so 
many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and 
with such a vast extent of fields and pastures, 
that Shalum was now grown more wealthy 
than Mishpach; and therefore appeared so 
charming in the eyes of Zilpah's daughter, 
that she no longer refused him in marriage. 
On the day in which he brought her up into the 
mountains he raised a most prodigious pile of 
cedar, and of every sweet smelling wood, which 
reached above three hundred cubits in height; 
he also cast into the pile bundles of myrrh 
and sheaves of spikenard, enriching it with 
every spicy shrub, and making it fat with the 
gums of his plantations. This was the burnt- 
offering which Shalum offered in the day of 
his espousals: the smoke of it ascended up to 
heaven, and filled the whole country with in- 
cense and perfume. 

SIR RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729) 

THE TATLER 

NO. 82. OCTOBER 18, 1709 

Ubi idem et maximus et honcstissimus amor est, 
aliquando praestat morte fungi, quam vita dislrahi. 1 

— Val. Max. 

After the mind has been employed on con- 
templations suitable to its greatness, it is un- 
natural to run into sudden mirth or levity; 
but we must let the soul subside, as it rose, 
by proper degrees. My late considerations of 
the ancient heroes impressed a certain gravity 
•upon my mind, which is much above the little 
gratification received from starts of humour 
and fancy, and threw me into a pleasing sad- 
ness. In this state of thought I have been 
looking at the fire, and in a pensive manner 
reflecting upon the great misfortunes and 
calamities incident to human life; among which 

1 Where there is at once the greatest and most 
honourable love, it is sometimes better to be joined by 
death than separated by life. 



20S 



SIR RICHARD STEELE 



there are none that touch so sensibly as those 
which befall persons who eminently love, and 
meet with fatal interruptions of their happiness 
when they least expect it. The piety of chil- 
dren to parents, and the affection of parents to 
their children, are the effects oi instinct; but 
the affection between lovers and friends is 
founded on reason and choice, which has 
always made me think the sorrows of the latter 
much more to be pitied than those of the former. 
The contemplation oi distresses of this sort 
softens the mind of man, and makes the heart 
better. It extinguishes the seeds of envy and 
ill will towards mankind, corrects the pride of 
prosperity, and beats down all that fierceness 
and insolence which are apt to get into the 
minds oi the daring and fortunate. 

For this reason the wise Athenians, in their 
theatrical performances, laid before the eyes 
of the people the greatest afflictions which 
could befall human life, and insensibly polished 
their tempers by such representations. Among 
the moderns, indeed, there has arisen a chi- 
merical method oi disposing the fortune of the 
persons represented, according to what they 
call poetical justice; and letting none be 
unhappy but those who deserve it. In such 
cases, an intelligent spectator, if he is concerned, 
knows he ought not to be so; and can learn 
nothing from such a tenderness, but that he is 
a weak creature, whose passions cannot follow 
the dictates of his understanding. It is very 
natural, when one is got into such a way of 
thinking, to recollect those examples oi sorrow 
which have made the strongest impression upon 
our imaginations. An instance or two of such 
you will give me leave to communicate. 

A young gentleman and lady oi ancient and 
honourable houses in Cornwall had, from their 
childhood, entertained for each other a gener- 
ous and noble passion, which had been long 
opposed by their friends, by reason of the in- 
equality of their fortunes; but their constancy 
to each other, and obedience to those on whom 
they depended, wrought so much upon their 
relations, that these celebrated lovers were 
at length joined in marriage. Soon after their' 
nuptials, the bridegroom was obliged to go 
into a foreign country, to take care of a con- 
siderable fortune, which was left him by a 
relation, and came very opportunely to improve 
their moderate circumstances. They received 
the congratulations of all the country on this 
occasion ; and I remember it was a common 
sentence in every one's mouth, "You see how 
faithful love is rewarded." 



He took this agreeable voyage, and sent home 
every post fresh accounts of his success in his 
affairs abroad; but at last, though he designed 
to return with the next ship, he lamented, in 
his letters, that "business would detain him 
some time longer from home," because he would 
give himself the pleasure of an unexpected arrival. 

The young lady, after the heat of the day, 
walked every evening on the sea-shore, near 
which she lived, with a familiar friend, her 
husband's kinswoman; and diverted herself 
with what objects they met there, or upon dis- 
courses of the future methods of life, in the 
happy change of their circumstances. They 
stood one evening on the shore together in a 
perfect tranquillity, observing the setting of the 
sun, the calm face of the deep, and the silent 
heaving of the waves, which gently rolled towards 
them, and broke at their feet; when at a dis- 
tance her kinswoman saw something float on 
the waters, which she fancied was a chest; 
and with a smile told her, "she saw it first, 
and if it came ashore full of jewels, she had a 
right to it." They both fixed their eyes upon 
it, and entertained themselves with the subject 
of the wreck, the cousin still asserting her 
right; but promising, "if it was a prize, to 
give her a very rich coral for the child of 
which she was then. big. provided she might 
be godmother." Their mirth soon abated, 
when they observed, upon the nearer ap- 
proach, that it was a human body. The young 
lady, who had a heart naturally filled with 
pity and compassion, made many' melancholy 
reflections on the occasion. "Who knows." said 
she, "but this man may be the only hope and 
heir of a wealthy house; the darling of indulgent 
parents, who are now in impertinent mirth, 
and pleasing themselves with the thoughts of 
offering him a bride they have got ready for 
him? or, may he not be the master of a family 
that wholly depended upon his life? There 
may. for aught we know, be half a dozen father- 
less children, and a tender wife, now exposed 
to poverty by his death. What pleasure might 
he have promised himself in the different wel- 
come he was to have from her and them ! 
But let us go away ; it is a dreadful sight .' 
The best office we can do, is to take care that 
the poor man, whoever he is. may be decently 
buried." She turned away, when a wave threw 
the carcass on the shore. The kinswoman 
immediately shrieked out, "Oh my cousin!" 
and fell upon the ground. The unhappy wife 
went to help her friend, when she saw her 
own husband at her feet, and dropped in a 



THE TATLER 



209 



swoon upon the body. An old woman, who 
had been the gentleman's nurse, came out about 
(his lime to eall the ladies in lo supper, and 
found her child, as she always called him, dead 
on the shore, her mistress and kinswoman 
both lying dead by him. I ler loud lamentations, 
and calling her young master to life, soon awaked 
the friend from her trance; hut the wife was 
gone for ever. 

When the family and neighbourhood got to- 
gether round the bodies, no one asked any ques- 
tion, hut the objects before them (old the story. 

Incidents of this nature are the more moving 
when they are drawn by persons concerned in 
the catastrophe, notwithstanding they are often 
oppressed beyond the power of giving them in 
a distinct light, except we gather their sorrow 
from their Inability lo speak it. 

I have two original letters, written both on 
the same day, which are to me exquisite in 
their different kinds. The occasion was this: 
A gentlemen who had courted a most agreeable 
young woman, and won her heart, obtained 
also the consent of her father, to whom she was 
an only child. The old man had a fancy that 
they should be married in the same church 
where he himself was, in a village in West- 
moreland, and made them set out while he was 
laid up with the gout at London. The bride- 
groom took only his man, the bride her maid: 
they had the most agreeable journey imagi- 
nable to the place of marriage; from whence 
the bridegroom writ the following letter to 
his wife's father. 
«o IR "March 18, 1672. 

"After a very pleasant journey hither, 
we are preparing for the happy hour in which 
1 am to be your son. I assure you the bride 
carries it, in the eye of the vicar who married 
you, much beyond her mother; though he 
says, your open sleeves, pantaloons, and 
shoulder knot, made a much heller show than 
the finical dress I am in. However, I am con- 
tented to be the second fine man this village 
ever saw, and shall make it very merry before 
night, because I shall write myself from thence, 
"Your most dutiful son, 

"T. D." 

"The bride gives her duty, and is as hand- 
some as an angel. ... I am the happiest 
man breathing." 

The villagers were assembling about the 
church, and the happy couple took a walk in a 
private garden. The bridegroom's man knew 
his master would leave the place on a sudden 



after the wedding, and, seeing him draw his 
pistols the night before, took this opportunity 
to go into his chamber and charge them. 
Upon their return from the garden, they went 
into that room; and, after a little fond raillery 
on the subject of their courtship, the lover 
look up a pistol, which he knew he had unloaded 
the night before, and, presenting it to her, said, 
with the most graceful air, whilst she looked 
pleased at his agreeable flattery; "Now, 
madam, repent of all those cruelties you have 
been guilty of to me; consider, before you die, 
how often you have made a poor wret< h 
freeze under your casement; you shall die, 
you tyrant, you shall die, with all those instru- 
ments of death and destruction about you, with 
that enchanting smile, those killing ringlets 
of your hair" — "( live lire !" said she, laughing. 
He did so; and shot her dead. Who can speak 
his condition? but he bore it so patiently as to 
call up his man. The poor wretch entered, 
and his master locked the door upon him. 
"Will," said he, "did you charge these pistols?" 
He answered, "Yes." Upon which he shot 
him dead with that remaining. After this, 
amidst a thousand broken sobs, piercing groans, 
and distracted motions, he writ the following 
letter to the father of his dead mistress. 

"Sir, 

"I, who two hours ago told you truly 
I was the happiest man alive, am now the most 
miserable. Your daughter lies dead at my 
feet, killed by my hand, through a mistake of 
my man's charging my pistols unknown to me. 
Him have 1 murdered for it. Such is my 
wedding day. ... 1 will immediately follow my 
wife to her grave; but, before I throw myself 
upon my sword, I command my distraction so 
far as to explain my story to you. 1 fear my 
heart will not keep together until I have stabbed 
it. Poor, good old man ! . . . Remember, he 
that killed your daughter died for it. In the 
article of death, I give you my thanks, and pray 
for you, though 1 dare not for myself. If it 
be possible, do not curse me." 

NO. 95. NOVEMBER 17, 1709 

Inter ea dulces pendent cireum oscula nati, 
Casta pudicitiam scrvat downs. 1 

— Vikg. Gcorg. ii. 523. 

There are several persons who have many 
pleasures and entertainments in their posses- 

1 Meanwhile his sweet children hang upon his 
kisses and his chaste home is the ahode of virtue. 



2IO 



SIR RICHARD STEELE 



sion, which they do not enjoy. It is, therefore, 
a kind and good office to acquaint them with 
their own happiness, and turn their attention 
to such instances of their good fortune as they 
are apt to overlook. Persons in the married 
state often want such a monitor; and pine 
away their days, by looking upon the same 
condition in anguish and murmur, which car- 
ries with it in the opinion of others a complica- 
tion of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat 
from its inquietudes. 

I am let! into this thought by a visit I made an 
old friend, who was formerly my school-fellow. 
He came to town last week with his family 
for the winter, and yesterday morning sent me 
word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, 
as it were, at home at that house, and every 
member of it knows me for their well-wisher. 
1 cannot indeed express the pleasure it is, to 
be mei by the children with so much joy as 
I am when I go thither. The boys and girls 
strive who shall come first, when they think it 
is I that am knocking at the door; and that 
child which loses the race to me runs back 
again to tell the father it is Mr. BickerstafT. 
This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we 
all thought must have forgot me; for the 
family has been out of town these two years. 
Her knowing me again was a mighty subject 
with us, and took up our discourse at the first 
entrance. After which, they began to rally 
me upon a thousand little stories they heard 
in the country, about my marriage to one of 
my neighbour's daughters. Upon which the 
gentleman, my friend, said, "Nay, if Mr. 
Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old 
companions, I hope mine shall have the pref- 
erence; there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, 
and would make him as fine a widow as the 
best of them. Hut I know him too well; he is 
so enamoured with the very memory of those 
who tlourished in our youth, that he will not 
so much as look upon the modern beauties. 
I remember, old gentleman, how often you 
went home in a day to refresh your countenance 
and dress when Teraminta reigned in your 
heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated 
to my wife some of your verses on her." With 
such reflections on little passages which hap- 
pened long ago, we passed our time, during a 
cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner, his 
lady left the room, as did also the children. 
As soon as we were alone, he took me by the 
hand; "Well, my good friend," says he, "I 
am heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you 
would never have seen all the company that 



dined with you to-day again. Do not you 
think the good woman of the house a little 
altered since you followed her from the play- 
house, to find out who she was, for me?" 
I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he 
spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to 
turn the discourse, I said, "She is not indeed 
quite that creature she was, when she returned 
me the letter I carried from you; and told me, 
'she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be 
employed no more to trouble her, who had 
never offended me; but would be so much the 
gentleman's friend, as to dissuade him from 
a pursuit, which he could never succeed in.' 
You may remember, I thought her in earnest; 
and you were forced to emplov your cousin 
Will, who made his sister get acquainted with 
her, for you. You cannot expect her to be for 
ever fifteen." "Fifteen!" replied my good 
friend: "Ah! you little understand, you that 
have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite 
a pleasure there is, in being really beloved! 
It is impossible, that the most beauteous face 
in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas, 
as when I look upon that excellent woman. 
That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused 
by her watching with me, in my fever. This 
was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like 
to have carried her off last winter. I tell you 
sincerely, I have so many obligations to her, 
that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, 
think of her present state of health. But as to 
what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day 
pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the 
possession of her beauty, when I was in the 
vigour of youth. Every moment of her life 
brings me fresh instances of her complacency 
to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard 
to my fortune. Her face is to me much more 
beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no 
decay in any feature, which I cannot trace, 
from the very instant it was occasioned by some 
anxious concern for my welfare and interests. 
Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I 
conceived towards her for what she was, is 
heightened by my gratitude for what she is. 
The love of a wife is as much above the idle 
passion commonly called by that name, as the 
loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the ele- 
gant mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is an 
inestimable jewel. In her examination of her 
household affairs, she shows a certain tearful- 
ness to find a fault, which makes her servants 
obey her like children ; and the meanest we have 
has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not 
always to be seen in children in other families. 



THE TATLER 



211 



I speak freely to you, my old friend ; ever since 
her sickness, things that gave me the quickest 
joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. 
As the children play in the next room, I know 
the poor things by their steps, and am consider- 
ing what they must do, should they lose their 
mother in their tender years. The pleasure I 
used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, 
and asking my girl questions about the dis- 
posal of her baby, and the gossiping of it, is 
turned into inward reflection and melancholy." 
He would have gone on in this tender way, 
when the good lady entered, and with an in- 
expressible sweetness in her countenance told 
us, "she had been searching her closet for 
something very good, to treat such an old friend 
as I was." Her husband's eyes sparkled with 
pleasure at the cheerfulness of her counte- 
nance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an 
instant. The lady observing something in our 
looks which showed we had been more serious 
than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive 
her with great concern under a forced cheer- 
fulness, immediately guessed at what we had 
been talking of; and applying herself to me, 
said, with a smile, "Mr. Bickerstaff, do not 
believe a word of what he tells you, I shall 
still live to have you for my second, as I have 
often promised you, unless he takes more care 
of himself than he has done since his coming to 
town. You must know, he tells me that he 
finds London is a much more healthy place 
than the country ; for he sees several of his old 
acquaintance and school-fellows are here young 
fellows with fair full-bottomed periwigs. 1 I 
could scarce keep him in this morning from 
going out open-breasted." 2 My friend, who is 
always extremely delighted with her agreeable 
humour, made her sit down with us. She did 
it with that easiness which is peculiar to women 
of sense ; and to keep up the good humour she 
had brought in with her, turned her raillery 
upon me. "Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember 
you followed me one night from the play-house; 
suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow 
night, and lead me into the front box." This 
put us into a long field of discourse about the 
beauties, who were mothers to the present, and 
shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told 
her, "I was glad she had transferred so many 
of her charms, and I did not question but her 
eldest daughter was within half-a-year of being 
a toast." 



'Such as only young men wore. 2 With his 

coat unbuttoned, like a young gallant. 



We were pleasing ourselves with this fan- 
tastical preferment of the young lady, when on 
a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a 
drum, and immediately entered my little god- 
son to give me a point of war. His mother, 
between laughing and chiding, would have put 
him out of the room; but I would not part with 
him so. I found, upon conversation with him, 
though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that 
the child had excellent parts, and was a great 
master of all the learning on the other side 
eight years old. I perceived him a very great 
historian in /Esop's Fables: but he frankly 
declared to me his mind, "that he did not de- 
light in that learning, because he did not believe 
they were true;" for which reason I found he 
had very much turned his studies, for about a 
twelvemonth past, into the lives and adventures 
of Don Belianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, 
the Seven Champions, 1 and other historians of 
that age. I could not but observe the satis- 
faction the father took in the forwardness of 
his son; and that these diversions might turn 
to some profit, I found the boy had made re- 
marks, which might be of service to him dur- 
ing the course of his whole life. He would 
tell you the mismanagements of John Hicker- 
thrift, find fault with the passionate temper in 
Bevis of Southampton, and loved St. George l 
for being the champion of England; and by 
this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded 
into the notions of discretion, virtue, and 
honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, 
when the mother told me, that the little girl 
who led me in this morning was in her way a 
better scholar than he. "Betty," said she, 
"deals chiefly in fairies and sprights; and 
sometimes in a winter-night will terrify the 
maids with her accounts, until they are afraid 
to go up to bed." 

I sat with them until it was very late, some- 
times in merry, sometimes in serious discourse, 
with this particular pleasure, which gives the 
only true relish to all conversation, a sense 
that every one of us liked each other. I went 
home, considering the different conditions of a 
married life and that of a bachelor; and I must 
confess it struck me with a secret concern, to 
reflect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no 
traces behind me. In this pensive mood I 
returned to my family; that is to say, to my 
maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be 
the better or worse for what happens to me. 

1 These heroes of the earlier romances had become 
in the eighteenth century the subjects of chap-books 
for children and the common people. 



212 



SIR RICHARD STEELE 



THE TATLER 

NO. 167. MAY 4, 1710 

SegnitU irritant animos demissa per a arcs, 

Quam quae sunt oculis submissa Jidelibus.* — Hor. 

From my own Apartment, May 2. 
Having received notice, thai the famous actor, 
Mr. Betterton, was to be interred this evening 
in the cloisters near Westminster Abbey, 1 
was resolved to walk thither, and see the last 
office done to a man whom 1 had always very 

much admired, and from whose action I had 
received more Strong impressions of what is 
great and noble in human nature, than from the 
arguments of the most solid philosophers, or 
the descriptions o( the most charming poets 1 
had ever read. As the rude ami untaught 
multitude are no way wrought upon more 
effectually than by seeing public punishments 
and executions; so men o\ letters and education 
feel their humanity most forcibly exercised, 
when they attend the obsequies of men who 
hail arrived at any perfection in liberal accom- 
plishments. Theatrical action is to be esteemed 
as such, except it be objected, that we cannot 
call that an art which cannot be attained by 
art. Voice, stature, motion, and other gifts, 
must be very bountifully bestowed by nature, 
or labour and industry will but push the un- 
happy endeavour in that way, the farther off 
his wishes. 

Such an actor as Mr. betterton ought to be 
recorded with the same respect as Rosdus 
among the Romans. The greatest orator has 
thought lit to quote his judgment, and cele- 
brate his life. Roscius was the example to all 
that would form themselves into proper and 
winning behaviour. His action was so well 
adapted to the sentiments he expressed, that 
the youth of Rome thought they only wanted 
to be virtuous to be as graceful in their appear- 
ance as Roscius. The imagination took a 
lovely impression of what was great and good; 
and (hey who never thought oi setting up for 
the art of imitation, became themselves in- 
imitable characters. 

There is no human i mention so aptly 
calculated for the forming a free born people 
as that of a theatre. Tully reports, that the 
celebrated player of whom I am speaking, used 
frequently to say, "The perfection of an actor 
is only to become what he is doing." Young 

1 Things told move us less than those scon l>v our 
own faithful ej es. 



men, who are too inattentive to receive lectures, 
are irresistibly taken with performances. Hence 
it is, that I extremely lament the little relish 
the gentry of this nation have at present for the 
just and noble representations in some of our 
tragedies. The operas, which are of late in- 
troduced, can leave no trace behind them that 
can be of service beyond the present moment. 
To sing and to dance, are accomplishments very 
few have any thoughts of practising; but to 
speak justly, and move gracefulh . is what every 
man thinks he does perform, or wishes he did. 

I have hardly a notion, that any performer 
of antiquity could surpass the action of Mr. Bet- 
terton in any of the occasions in which he has 
appeared on our stage. The wonderful agony 
which he appeared in, when he examined the 
circumstance of the handkerchief in Othello J 
the mixture of love that intruded upon his 
mind, upon the innocent answers Desdemona 
makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety 
and vicissitude of passions, as would admon- 
ish a man to be afraid of his own heart, ami 
perfectly convince him, that it is to stab it, to 
admit that worst of daggers, jealousy. Who- 
ever reads in his closet this admirable scene, 
will find that he cannot, except he has as warm 
an imagination as Shakespeare himself, find 
any but dry, incoherent, anil broken sentences: 
but a reader that has seen Betterton act it, 
observes there could not be a word added; 
that longer speeches had been unnatural, nay, 
impossible, in Othello's circumstances. The 
charming passage in the same tragedy, where he 
tells the manner of winning the affection of his 
mistress, was urged with so moving and grace- 
ful an energy, that while I walked in the Clois- 
ters, I thought of him with the same concern as 
if I waited for the remains of a person who 
had in real life done all that I had seen him 
represent. The gloom of the place, and faint 
lights before the ceremony appeared, contributed 
to the melancholy disposition 1 was in; and I 
began to be extremely afflicted, that brums and 
Cassius had any difference; that Hotspur's 
gallantry was so unfortunate; and that the 
mirth and good humour of FalstatT could not 
exempt him from the grave. Nay, this occasion 
in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst 
men to be merely scenical, raised reflections 
upon the emptiness of all human perfection 
and greatness in general; and 1 could not but 
regret, that the sacred heads which lie buried 
in the neighbourhood of this little portion of 
earth in which my poor old friend is deposited, 
are returned to dust as well as he, and that there 



Till-; TATLKR 



213 



is no difference in (lie grave between the 
imaginary and the real monarch. This made 
me say of human life itself witli Macbeth : 

To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
Creeps in a stealing pace from day to day, 
To the Last moment oJ recorded lime! 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
To the eternal night! (Jut, out, short candle I 
Life's bul a walking shadow, a |»« >r player 
I h.ii itruts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
And then is heard no more. 

The mention I have here made of Mr. Better- 
ton, for whom I had, as long as I have known 
anything, a very great esteem and gratitude 
for the pleasure he gave me, can do him no 
good; bul il may possibly be of service to the 
unhappy woman he has left behind him, to 
have il known, that this great tragedian was 
never in a scene half so moving, as the cir- 
cumstances of his affairs created at his de- 
parture. His wife after the cohabitation of 
forty years in the strictest amity, has long 
pined away with a sense of his decay, as well 
in his person as his little fortune; and, in 
proportion to that, she has herself decayed 
both in her health and reason. Her husband's 
death, added to her age and infirmities, would 
certainly have determined her life, but that 
I he greatness of her distress has been her 
relief, by a present deprivation of her senses. 
This absence of reason is her best defence 
against sorrow, poverty, and sickness. I dwell 
upon this account so distinctly, in obedience to 
a certain greal spirit, who hides her name, and 
has by letter applied to me to recommend to 
her some object of compassion, from whom 
she may be concealed. 

This, I think, is a proper occasion for exert- 
ing such heroic generosity; and as there is an 
ingenuous shame in those who have known 
better fortune to be reduced to receive obliga- 
tions, as well as a becoming pain in the truly 
generous to receive thanks; in this case both 
these delicacies are preserved; for the person 
obliged is as incapable of knowing her bene- 
factress, as her benefactress is unwilling to be 
known by her. 

THE TATLER 

NO. 264. DECEMBER 16, 1710 

Favetc Unguis. 1 — Hor. Od. iii. 2. 2. 

Boccalini, in his "Parnassus," indicts a la- 
conic writer for speaking that in three words 

1 Spare speech. 



which he might have said in two, and sen- 
tences him for his punishment to read over all 
the words of Guicciardini. This Guicciardini 
is so very prolix and circumstantial in his 
writings, that I remember our countryman, 
Doctor Donne, speaking of that majestic and 
concise manner in which Moses has described 
the creation of the world, adds, "that if such 
an author as Guicciardini were to have written 
on such a subject, the world itself would not 
have been able to have contained the books 
that gave the history of its creation." 

I look upon a tedious talker, or what is 
generally known by the name of a story teller, 
to be much more insufferable than even a 
prolix writer. An author may be tossed out 
of your hand, and thrown aside when he grows 
dull and tiresome; but such liberties are so 
far from being allowed towards your orators 
in common conversation, that I have known 
a challenge sent a person for going out of the 
room abruptly, and leaving a man of honour 
in the midst of a dissertation. This evil is at 
present so very common and epidemical, that 
there is scarce a coffee-house in town that has 
not some speakers belonging to it, who utter 
their political essays, and draw parallels out 
of Baker's "Chronicle" to almost every pail 
of her majesty's reign. It was said of two 
ancient authors, who had very different beauties 
in their style, "that if you took a word from 
one of them, you only spoiled his eloquence; 
but if you took a word from the other, you 
spoiled his sense." I have often applied the 
first part of this criticism to several of these 
coffee house speakers whom I have at present 
in my thoughts, though the character that is 
given to the last of those authors, is what I 
would recommend to the imitation of my 
loving countrymen. But it is not only public 
places of resort, but private clubs and con- 
versations over a bottle, that are infested with 
this loquacious kind of animal, especially with 
that species which I comprehend under the 
name of a story-teller. I would earnestly 
desire these gentlemen to consider, that no 
point of wit or mirth at the end of a story can 
atone for the half hour that has been lost 
before they come at it. I would likewise lay 
it home to their serious consideration, whether 
they think that every man in the company has 
not a right to speak as well as themselves? and 
whether they do not think they are invading 
another man's properly, when they engross the 
time which should be divided equally among 
the company to their own private use ? 



214 



SIR RICHARD STEELE 



What makes this evil the much greater in 
conversation is, that these humdrum com- 
panions seldom endeavour to wind up their 
narrations into a point of mirth or instruction, 
which might make some amends for the 

tediousness of them; l)iit think they have a 
right to tell anything that has happened within 
their memory. They look upon matter of 
fact to he a sufficient foundation for a story, 

ami give us a long account of things, not be- 
cause they are entertaining or surprising, but 

because they are true. 

My ingenious kinsman, Mr. Humphry 
WagStaff, used to say, "the life of man is too 
short for a Story teller." 

Methusalem might be half an hour in tell- 
ing what o'clock it was: but as for us post- 

diluvians, we ought to do everything in haste; 

and in our speeches, as well as actions, remem- 
ber that our time is short. A man that talks 
for a quarter of an hour together in company, 
if 1 meet him Frequently, takes up a great part 
of my span. A quarter of an hour may be 

reckoned the eight and fortieth part of a day, 
a day the three hundred and sixtieth part of a 
year, and a year tin- threescore ami tenth part 
of life. By this moral arithmetic, supposing a 
man to be in the talking world one third part 
of the day, whoever gives another a quarter of 
an hour's hearing, makes him a sacrifice of 
more than the four hundred thousandth part 
of his conversable life. 

1 would establish but one great general rule 
to be observed in all conversation, which is 
this, "that men should not talk to please 
themselves, but those that hear them." This 
would make them consider, whether what 
they speak be worth hearing; whether there 
be either wit or sense in what they are about 
to say; and, whether it be adapted to the 
time when, the place where, and the person to 
whom, it is spoken. 

For the utter extirpation of these orators 
and story tellers, which I look upon as very 
great pests of society, 1 have invented a watch 
which divides the minute into twelve parts, 
after the same manner that the ordinary 
watches are divided into hours: and will en- 
deavour to get a patent, which shall oblige 
every club or company to provide themselves 
with one of these watches, that shall lie upon 
the table as an hour glass is often placed near 
the pulpit, to measure out the length of a 
discourse. 

I shall be willing to allow a man one round 
of my watch, that is, a whole minute, to speak 



in ; but if he exceeds that time, it shall be 
lawful for any of the company to look upon 
the watch, or to call him down to order. 

Provided, however, that if any one can 
make it appear hi' is turned of threescore, he 
may take two, or, if he pleases, three rounds 
of the watch without giving offence. Pro- 
vided, also, that this rule be not construed to 
extend to the fair sex, who shall still be at 
liberty to talk by the ordinary watch that is 
now in use. I would likewise earnestly recom- 
mend this little automaton, which may be 
easily carried in tin' pocket without any in- 
cumbrance, to all such as are troubled with 
this infirmity of speech, that upon pulling out 
their watches, they may have frequent occa- 
sion to consider what they are doing, and by 
that means cut the thread of the story short, 
and hurry to a conclusion. I shall only add, 
that this watch, with a paper of directions 
how to use it, is sold at Charles Lillie's. 

I am afraid a Tatler will be thought a very 
improper paper to censure this humour of 
being talkative; but 1 would have my readers 
know that there is a great difference between 
tattle and loquacity, as 1 shall show at large in a 
following lucubration; it being my design to 
throw away a candle upon that subject, in 
order to explain the whole art of tattling in 
all its branches and subdivisions. 

Till: SPECTATOR 
NO. ii. MARCH 13, 1711^ 

Dat veniam corvis, vexal censura columbas. 1 

— Juv. Sat. ii. 63. 

Arietta is visited by all persons of both 
sexes, who have any pretence to wit and 
gallantry. She is in that time of life which is 
neither affected with the follies of youth, nor 
infirmities of age; and her conversation is so 
mixed with gaiety and prudence, that she is 
agreeable both to the young and the old. 
Her behaviour is very frank, without being in 
the least blameable: and as she is out of the 
track of any amorous or ambitious pursuits 
of her own, her visitants entertain her with 
accounts of themselves very freely, whether 
they concern their passions or their interests. 
1 made her a visit tins afternoon, having been 
formerly introduced to the honour of her 
acquaintance by my friend Will Honeycomb, 
who has prevailed upon her to admit me 

1 (.'ensure spares the crows anil attacks the doves. 



THE SPECTATOR 



215 



sometimes into her assembly, as a civil in- 
offensive man. I found her accompanied with 
one person only, a common-place talker, who, 
upon my entrance, arose, and after a very 
slight civility sat down again; then, turning to 
Arietta, pursued his discourse, which I found 
was upon the old topic of constancy in love. 
lie went on with great facility in repeating 
what he talks every day of his life; and with 
the ornaments of insignificant laughs and 
gestures, enforced his arguments by epiotations 
out of plays and songs, which allude to the 
perjuries of the fair, and the general levity of 
women. Methought he strove to shine more 
than ordinarily in his talkative way, that he 
might insult my silence, and distinguish him- 
self before a woman of Arietta's taste and 
understanding. She had often an inclination 
to interrupt him, but could find no oppor- 
tunity, till the larum ceased of itself, which it 
did not till he had repeated and murdered the 
celebrated story of the Ephesian Matron. 

Arietta seemed to regard this piece of 
raillery as an outrage done to her sex; as in- 
deed I have always observed that women, 
whether out of a nicer regard to their honour, 
or what other reason I cannot tell, are more 
sensibly touched with those general aspersions 
which are cast upon their sex, than men are 
by what is said of theirs. 

When she had a little recovered herself from 
the serious anger she was in, she replied in the 
following manner: 

"Sir, when I consider how perfectly new all 
you have said on this subject is, and that the 
story you have given us is not quite two thou- 
sand years old, I cannot but think it a piece 
of presumption to dispute it with you; but 
your quotations put me in mind of the fable 
of the lion and the man. The man walking 
with that noble animal, showed him, in the 
ostentation of human superiority, a sign of a 
man killing a lion. Upon which, the lion said 
very justly, 'We lions are none of us painters, 
else we could show a hundred men killed by 
lions for one lion killed by a man.' You men 
are writers, and can represent us women as 
unbecoming as you please in your works, 
while we are unable to return the injury. You 
have twice or thrice observed in your dis- 
course, that hypocrisy is the very foundation 
of our education; and that an ability to dis- 
semble our affections is a professed part of 
our breeding. These and such other reflec- 
tions are sprinkled up and down the writings 
of all ages, by authors, who leave behind them 



memorials of their resentment against the 
scorn of particular women, in invectives against 
the whole sex. Such a writer, I doubl not, 
was the celebrated Petronius, who invented the 
pleasant aggravations of the frailty of the 
Ephesian lady; but when we consider this 
question between the sexes, which has been 
either a point of dispute or raillery ever since 
there were men and women, let us take facts 
from plain people, and from such as have not 
either ambition or capacity to embellish their 
narrations with any beauties of imagination. 
I was the other day amusing myself with 
Ligon's Account of Barbadoes; and, in answer 
to your well-wrought tale, I will give you, (as 
it dwells upon my memory) out of that honest 
traveller, in his fifty-fifth page, the history of 
Inkle and Yarico. 

'"Mr. Thomas Inkle, of London, aged 
twenty years, embarked in the Downs, on the 
good ship called the Achilles, bound for the 
West Indies, on the 16th of June, 1647, in 
order to improve his fortune by trade and 
merchandise. Our adventurer was the third 
son of an eminent citizen, who had taken 
particular care to instil into his mind an early 
love of gain, by making him a perfect master 
of numbers, and consequently giving him a 
quick view of loss and advantage, and pre- 
venting the natural impulses of his passions, 
by prepossession towards his interests. With 
a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a per- 
son every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his 
countenance, strength in his limbs, with ring- 
lets of fair hair loosely flowing on his shoulders. 
It happened, in the course of the voyage, that 
the Achilles, in some distress, put into a creek 
on (he main of America, in search of pro- 
visions. The youth, who is the hero of my 
story, among others went on shore on this 
occasion. From their first landing they were 
observed by a party of Indians, who hid them- 
selves in the woods for that purpose. The 
English unadvisedly marched a great distance 
from the shore into the country, and were in- 
tercepted by the natives, who slew the greatest 
number of them. Our adventurer escaped 
among others, by flying into a forest. Upon 
his coming into a remote and pathless part of 
the wood, he threw himself, tired and breath- 
less, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid 
rushed from a thicket behind him. After the 
first surprise they appeared mutually agree- 
able to each other. If the European was 
highly charmed with the limbs, features, and 
wild graces of the naked American ; the Ameri- 



.MO 



GEORGE BERKELEY 



i. in was no leS8 taken with the dress, com 

plexion, and shape of an European, covered 
from head to Foot The [ndian grew in 
mediately enamoured oi him, and consequently 
solicitous for his preservation, She therefore 
conveyed him to a cave, where she gave him 
a delicious repast of fruits, and led him to a 
stream to slake his thirst. h» the midsl of 
these good offices, she would sometimes play 
wuli his hair, and delight in the opposition of 
its colour i«> thai of her fingers; then open his 
bosom, then laugh at him for covering it. 
She was, it seems, a person of distinction, 
tor she every daj came to him in a different 

die-.-., of the most hraulil'ul shells, bugles, and 

bredes. She likewise brought him a great 

m.ui\ spoils, which her other lovers had pie 
Sented to her, so that his eave was richly 
adorned with all the spotted skins of beasts, 
ami most party Coloured leathers of low Is, 
Which that World afforded, I'o make his 

confinement more tolerable, she would carry 
him in the ilnsk of the evening, or by the 
favour oi moonlight, to unfrequented -mows 

ami solitudes, ami show him where to lie down 
in safety, ami sleep amiolst the falls of waters 

and melody of nightingales. Her part was to 

Watch and hold him awake in her arms, for 
fear oi her countrymen, and wake him on 
Occasions to Consult his safety. In this man 
ner did the lovers pass awav their time, till 
thev had learned a language of their own, in 
Which the VOyagei communicated to his mis 
tress how happy he should he to have her in 
his country, where she should he elothed in 
SUCh silks as his waistcoat was made of, and 

he carried in houses drawn l>\ horses, without 

being exposed to wind or weather. All this 
lu- promised her the enjoyment oi, without 
SUCh fears and alarms as thev were there tor 

mented with. In this tender correspondence 

these lovers lived for several months, when 

Yarieo, instructed by her lover, discovered a 

vessel on the eoast, to which she made signals; 
and in the night, with the utmost joy and 

satisfaction, accompanied him to a ship's crew 
of his countrymen hound to Barbadoes. When 

a vessel from the main arrives in that island, it 
seems the planters eome down to the shore. 
Where there is .\n immediate market of the 
Indians and Other slaves, as with us of horses 

and oxen. 

""I'o he short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now 
Coming into English territories, began seriouslv 
to reflect upon his loss of time, and to weigh 
with himself how many days' interest oi his 



money he had lost during his stay with Yarieo. 
This thought made the young man very pen- 
sive, and careful what aeeount he should ho 
able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon 

which consideration, the prudent and frugal 

young man sold Yarieo to a Barhadian mer- 
chant; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to 
incline him to commiserate her condition, told 

him that she was with child by him: hut he 
only made use oi that information, to rise in 
his demands upon the purehaser.' " 

I was so touched with this story (which I 
think should he always a counterpart to the 

Ephesian Matron) that 1 left tin- room with 

tears in mv eves, which a woman oi Arietta's 
good sense did, 1 am sure, take for greater 
applause than anv compliments 1 could make 
her. 

GEORGE BERKELEY (1685 t;.s.O 

From A PROPOSAL FOR \ CO] 1 EGE 
rO BE ERECTED l\ THE SI M- 

Ml R IS1 WPS ' 

Although there are several excellent persons 
of tlu' Church of England, whose good inten- 
tions and endeavours have not heen wanting 

to propagate the Gospel in foreign parts, who 

have even combined into Societies for that 
very purpose, and given great encouragement, 
not only for English missionaries in the West 
Indies, hut also for the reformed of other 
nations, led by their example, 10 propagate 
Christianity in the East; it is nevertheless 
acknowledged that there is at this day hut 
little sense oi religion, and a most notorious 
corruption oi manners, in the English Colonies 
settled on the Continent oi America, and the 
Islands. It is also acknowledged that the 
Gospel hath hitherto made hut a very incon- 
siderable progress among the neighbouring 
Americans, who still continue in much the 
same ignorance and barbarism in which we 
found them above a hundred years ago. 

1 shall therefore venture to submit my 
thoughts, upon a point that 1 have long con 
sidcred, to better judgments, in hopes that 
anv expedient will be favourably hearkened to 
which is proposed for the remedy of these 
evils. Now, in order to effect this, it should 

1 I'he complete title is- A Proposal for the Better 
Supplying of Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and 
tor Converting the Savage Americans t,> Christianity, 
in .1 College to be erected in tlu- Summer Islands, 
otherwise called tin- Isles of Bermudas. 



A PROPOSAL FOR A COLLEGE TO BE ERECTED 217 

seem the natural proper method to provide, savage nations have towards foreigners. or 

in the first place, .'i constant supply 01 worthy innovations introduced by them, 

clergymen cor the English churches in those These considerations make ii evident, that 

parts; and, in the second place, a like con ;i College or Seminary in those parts is very 

Btanl supplj oi zealous missionaries, well fitted much wanted; and therefore the providing 

for propagating Christianity among the savages, such a Seminary is earnestly proposed and 

For, ihoii^h the surest means to reform the recommended to all those who have ii in their 

morals, ami soflen (he heha vioiir of men lie, power lo contribute to so good a work. Hy 

to preach lo them the pure uncorrupl doclrine 1 1 1 is, tWO ends would be obtained: 

of the Gospel, yel ii cannol be denied that the First, the youth of our English Plantations 

suite. .sol preaching dependeth in good meas might be themselves fitted foi the ministry; 

ure on ihe character and skill of the preacher, and men of merit would be then glad to Ml 

Forasmuch as mankind are more apt to »opy the churches of their native country, which 

characters than to practise precepts, and foras are now a drain for the very dree,:, and refuse 

much as argument, to attain its full strength, of ours. 

dodi not less require the life of zeal than the Ai present, there are, I am told, many 

weight of reason; and the same doctrine which churches vacant in our Plantations, and many 

maketh great impression when delivered with very ill supplied ; nor can all the vigilance and 

decency and address loselh very ninth of its wisdom of lhal great prelate, whose peculiar 

lone by passing through awkward or unskil care il is, prevent this, so long as the aforesaid 

ful hands. churches are supplied from England. 

Now the clergy sent over tO America have And supplied they must lie with such as 

proved, too many of them, very meanly qualified can be picked up in England or Inland, until 

both in learning and morals for the discharge a nursery of learning for the education of the 

of their office. And indeed little can lie e\ natives is founded. This indeed might pro 

peeled from ihe example or instruction of vide a conslanl succession of learned and 

those who quit their native country on no exemplary pastors; and what effect this 

other motive than that they are unable to pro might be supposed to have on their Hocks I 

cure ;i livelihood in it, which is known to be need not say. 

often the case. Secondly, the children of savage Americans, 

To this may be imputed the small care that brought up in such a Seminary, and well in 

hath been taken lo convert (he negroes of OUT slrucled in religion and teaming, might make 

Plantations, who, to the infamy of England the ablest and properest missionaries for 

and scandal of the world, Continue heathen Spreading the Gospel anion;'; iheir country 

under Christian masters, and in Christian men; who would lie less apl lo suspeel, and 

Countries. Which could never lie, if our readier to einlirace a doclrine recommended 

planters were rightly instructed and made by neighbours or relations, men of their own 

sensible that they disappointed their own hap blood and language, than if it were proposed 

(ism by denying it to those who belong to by foreigners, who would not improbably he 

them: thai it would be of advantage to their thought to have designs on ihe liberty 01 

affairs lo have slaves who should "obey in all property of Iheir converts. 

things iheir masters according to Ihe flesh, nol The young Americans necessary for this 

with eye-service as men-pleasers, bul in single- purpose may, in the beginning, lie procured, 

ness of heart, as fearing God:" lhai Gospel either by peaceable methods from those savage 

liberty consists with temporal servitude; and nations which border On our Colonies, and 

lhal Iheir slaves would only liecome better are in friendship with US, Or by taking captive 

slaves by being Christian. the children of our enemies. 

\nd though il lie allowed lhal some of the If is proposed lo admit into Ihe aforesaid 

Clergy in our Colonies have approved I hem College only such savages as are under len 

selves men of merit, if will al ihe same lime years of age, before evil haliils have taken a 

he allowed lhal ihe most /ealous and alile deep root; and yet not so early as to prevent 

missionary from England musl find himself retaining Iheir mother lonjme, which should 

liui ill qualified for converting the American be preserved by intercourse among themselves, 

heathen, if we consider ihe difference of It is farther proposed to ground these young 

language, iheir wild way of living, and, aliove Americans thoroughly in religion and morality, 

all, the great jealousy and prejudice which and to give them a good tincture of other 



2l8 



GEORGE BERKELEY 



learning; particularly of eloquence, history, 
and practical mathematics; to which it may 
not be improper to add some skill in physic. 

If there were a yearly supply of ten or a 
dozen such missionaries sent abroad into their 
lespective countries, after they had received 
the degree of master of arts in the aforesaid 
College, and holy orders in England (till such 
time as Episcopacy be established in those 
parts), it is hardly to be doubted but, in a 
little time, the world would see good and great 
effects thereof. 

For, to any considering man, the employ- 
ing American missionaries for the conversion 
of America will, of all others, appear the most 
likely method to succeed; especially if care be 
taken that, during the whole course of their 
education, an eye should be had to their 
mission ; that they should be taught betimes 
to consider themselves as trained up in that 
sole view, without any other prospect of pro- 
vision or employment ; that a zeal for religion 
and love of their country should be early and 
constantly instilled into their minds, by re- 
peated lectures and admonitions; that they 
should not only be incited by the common 
topics of religion and nature, but farther ani- 
mated and inflamed by the great examples in 
past ages of public spirit and virtue, to rescue 
their countrymen from their savage manners 
to a life of civility and religion. 

If his Majesty would graciously please to 
grant a Charter for a College to be erected in 
a proper place for these uses, it is to be hoped 
a fund may be soon raised, by the contribu- 
tion of well-disposed persons, sufficient for 
building and endowing the same. For, as the 
necessary expense would be small, so there 
are men of religion and humanity in England 
who would be pleased to see any design set 
forward for the glory of God and the good of 
mankind. 

A small expense would suffice to subsist 
and educate the American missionaries in a 
plain simple manner, such as might make it 
easy for them to return to the coarse and poor 
methods of life in use among their country- 
men; and nothing can contribute more to 
lessen this expense, than a judicious choice of 
the situation where the Seminary is to stand. 

Many things ought to be considered in the 
choice of a situation. It should be in a good 
air; in a place where provisions are cheap 
and plenty; where an intercourse might easily 
be kept up with all parts of America and the 
Islands; in a place of security, not exposed 



to the insults of pirates, savages, or other 
enemies; where there is no great trade which 
might tempt the Readers or Fellows of the 
College to become merchants, to the neglect 
of their proper business; where there are 
neither riches nor luxury to divert or lessen 
their application, or to make them uneasy and 
dissatisfied with a homely frugal subsistence; 
lastly, where the inhabitants, if such a place 
may be found, are noted for innocence and 
simplicity of manners. I need not say of how 
great importance this point would be towards 
forming the morals of young students, and 
what mighty influence it must have on the 
mission. 

It is evident the College long since pro- 
jected in Barbadoes would be defective in 
many of these particulars; for, though it may 
have its use among the inhabitants, yet a 
place of so high trade, so much wealth and 
luxury, and such dissolute morals (not to 
mention the great price and scarcity of pro- 
visions) must, at first sight, seem a very 
improper situation for a general Seminary 
intended for the forming missionaries, and 
educating youth in religion and sobriety of 
manners. The same objections lie against the 
neighbouring islands. 

And, if we consider the accounts given of 
their avarice and licentiousness, their coldness 
in the practice of religion, and their aversion 
from propagating it (which appears in the 
withholding their slaves from baptism), it is 
to be feared, that the inhabitants in. the popu- 
lous parts of our Plantations on the Continent 
are not much fitter than those in the islands 
above mentioned, to influence or assist such 
a design. And, as to the more remote and 
less frequented parts, the difficulty of being 
supplied with necessaries, the danger of being 
exposed to the inroads of savages, and, above 
all, the want of intercourse with other places, 
render them improper situations for a Semi- 
nary of religion and learning. 

It will not be amiss to insert here an obser- 
vation I remember to have seen in an Abstract 
of the Proceedings, &c, annexed to the Dean 
of Canterbury's Sermon before the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts; that the savage Indians who live on 
the Continent will not suffer their children to 
learn English or Dutch, lest they should be 
debauched by conversing with their European 
neighbours; which is a melancholy but strong 
confirmation of the truth of what hath been 
now advanced. 



A PROPOSAL FOR A COLLEGE TO BE ERECTED 



219 



A general intercourse and correspondence 
with all the English Colonies, both on the 
Islands and the Continent, and with other 
parts of America, hath been before laid down 
as a necessary circumstance, the reason whereof 
is very evident. But this circumstance is 
hardly to be found. For, on the Continent, 
where there are neither inns, nor carriages, 
nor bridges over the rivers, there is no travel- 
ling by land between distant places. And the 
English settlements are reputed to extend 
along the sea-coast for the space of fifteen 
hundred miles. It is therefore plain there 
can be no convenient communication between 
them otherwise than by sea; no advantage 
therefore, in this point, can be gained by 
settling on the Continent. 

There is another consideration which equally 
regards the Continent and the Islands, that 
the general course of trade and correspondence 
lies from all those Colonies to Great Britain 
alone. Whereas, for our present purpose, it 
would be necessary to pitch upon a place, if 
such could be found, which maintains a con- 
stant intercourse with all the other Colonies, 
and whose commerce lies chiefly or altogether 
(not in Europe, but) in America. 

There is but one spot that I can find to 
which this circumstance agrees; and that is, 
the Isles of Bermuda, otherwise called the 
Summer Islands. These, having no rich com- 
modity or manufacture, such as sugar, tobacco, 
or the like, wherewithal to trade to England, 
are obliged to become carriers for America, as 
the Dutch are for Europe. The Bermudans 
are excellent ship-wrights and sailors, and 
have a great number of very good sloops, 
which are always passing and repassing from 
all parts of America. They drive a constant 
trade to the islands of Jamaica, Barbadoes, 
Antigua, &c, with butter, onions, cabbages, 
and other roots and vegetables, which they 
have in great plenty and perfection. They 
have also some small manufactures of joiner's 
work and matting, which they export to the 
Plantations on the Continent. Hence Ber- 
mudan sloops are oftener seen in the ports of 
America than in any other. And, indeed, by 
the best information I could get, it appears 
they are the only people of all the British 
Plantations who hold a general correspondence 
with the rest. 

And as the commerce of Bermuda renders 
it a very fit place wherein to erect a Seminary, 
so likewise doth its situation, it being placed 
between our Plantations on the Continent and 



those in the Isles, so as equally to respect 
both. To which may be added, that it lies 
in the way of vessels passing from America 
to Great Britain; all which makes it plain 
that the youth, to be educated in a Seminary 
placed in the Summer Islands would have fre- 
quent opportunities of going thither and corre- 
sponding with their friends. It must indeed 
be owned that some will be obliged to go a 
long way to any one place which we suppose 
resorted to from all parts of our Plantations; 
but if we were to look out a spot the nearest 
approaching to an equal distance from all the 
rest, I believe it would be found to be Ber- 
muda. It remains that we see whether it 
enjoys the other qualities or conditions laid 
down as well as this. 

The Summer Islands are situated near the 
latitude of thirty -three degrees; no part of 
the world enjoys a purer air, or a more tem- 
perate climate, the great ocean which environs 
them at once moderating the heat of the south 
winds, and the severity of the north-west. 
Such a latitude on the Continent might be 
thought too hot; but the air in Bermuda is 
perpetually fanned and kept cool by sea- 
breezes, which render the weather the most 
healthy and delightful that could be wished, 
being (as is affirmed by persons who have long 
lived there) of one equal tenor almost through- 
out the whole year, like the latter end of a 
fine May; insomuch that it is resorted to as 
the Montpelier of America. 

Nor are these isles (if we may believe the 
accounts given of them) less remarkable for 
plenty than for health; there being, besides 
beef, mutton, and fowl, great abundance of 
fruits, and garden-stuff of all kinds in per- 
fection: to this, if we add the great plenty and 
variety of fish which is every day taken on their 
coasts, it would seem, that a Seminary could 
nowhere be supplied with better provisions, or 
cheaper than here. 

About forty years ago, upon cutting down 
many tall cedars that sheltered their orange 
trees from the north wind (which sometimes 
blows even there so as to affect that delicate 
plant), great part of their orange plantations 
suffered; but other cedars are since grown 
up, and no doubt a little industry would again 
produce as great plenty of oranges as ever was 
there heretofore. I mention this because some 
have inferred from the present scarcity of that 
fruit, for which Bermuda was once so famous, 
that there hath been a change in the soil 
and climate for the worse. But this, as hath 



220 



GEORGE BERKELEY 



been observed, proceeded from another cause, 
which is now in great measure taken away. 

Bermuda is a cluster of small islands, which 
lie in a very narrow compass, containing, in all, 
not quite twenty thousand acres. This group of 
isles is (to use Mr. Waller's expression) walled 
round with rocks, which render them inac- 
cessible to pirates or enemies; there being but 
two narrow entrances, both well guarded by 
forts. It would therefore be impossible to find 
anywhere a more secure retreat for students. 

The trade of Bermuda consists only in garden- 
stuff, and some poor manufactures, principally 
of cedar and the palmetto-leaf. Bermuda hats 
are worn by our ladies: they are made of a sort 
of mat, or (as they call it) platting made of the 
palmetto-leaf, which is the only commodity 
that I can find exported from Bermuda to 
Great Britain; and as there is no prospect of 
making a fortune by this small trade, so it can- 
not be supposed to tempt the Fellows of the 
College to engage in it, to the neglect of their 
peculiar business, which might possibly be the 
case elsewhere. 

Such as their trade is, such is their wealth; 
the inhabitants being much poorer than the 
other Colonies, who do not fail to despise them 
upon that account. But, if they have less 
wealth, they have withal less vice and expen- 
sive folly than their neighbours. They are repre- 
sented as a contented, plain, innocent sort of 
people, free from avarice and luxury, as well as 
the other corruptions that attend those vices. 

I am also informed that the} - are more con- 
stant attendants on Divine service, more kind 
and respectful to their pastor (when they have 
one), and shew much more humanity to their 
slaves, and charity to one another, than is ob 
served among the English in the other Planta- 
tions. One reason of this may be that con- 
demned criminals, being employed in the 
manufactures of sugar and tobacco, were never 
transported thither. Hut, whatever be the 
cause, the facts are attested by a clergyman of 
good credit, who lived among them. 

Among a people of this character, and in a 
situation thus circumstantiated, it would seem 
that a Seminary of religion and learning might 
very fitly be placed. The correspondence with 
other parts of America, the goodness of the 
air, the plenty and security of the place, the 
frugality and innocence of the inhabitants, all 
conspiring to favour such a design. Thus 
much at least is evident, that young students 
would be there less liable to be corrupted in 
their morals; and the governing part would be 



easier, and better contented with a small sti- 
pend, and a retired academical life, in a corner 
from whence avarice and luxury are excluded, 
than they can be supposed to be in the midst of 
a full trade and great riches, attended with all 
that high living and parade which our planters 
affect, and which, as well as all fashionable 
vices, should be far removed from the eyes of 
the young American missionaries, who are to 
lead a life of poverty and self-denial among 
their countrymen. 

After all, it must be acknowledged, that 
though everything else should concur with our 
wishes, yet if a set of good Governors and 
Teachers be wanting, who are acquainted 
with the methods of education, and have the 
zeal and ability requisite for carrying on a 
design of this nature, it would certainly come 
to nothing. 

An institution of this kind should be set on 
foot by men of prudence, spirit, and zeal, as 
well as competent learning, who should be led 
to it by other motives than the necessity of 
picking up a maintenance. For, upon this 
view, what man of merit can be supposed to 
quit his native country, and take up with a 
poor college subsistence in another part of the 
world, where there are so many considerable 
parishes actually void, and so many others ill 
supplied for want of fitting incumbents? Is it 
likely that Fellowships of fifty or sixty pounds 
a year should tempt abler or worthier men 
than benefices of many times their value? 

And except able and worthy men do first 
engage in this affair, with a resolution to exert 
themselves in forming the manners of the 
youth, and giving them a proper education, it 
is evident the Mission and the College will be 
but in a very bad way. This inconvenience 
seems the most difficult to provide against, 
and if not provided against, it will be the most 
likely to obstruct any design of this nature. 
So true it is, that where ignorance or ill manners 
once take place in a Seminary, they are sure 
to be handed down in a succession of illiterate 
or worthless men. 

But this apprehension, which seems so well 
grounded, that a College in any part of America 
would either lie unprovided, or be worse pro- 
vided than their churches are, hath no place 
in Bermuda; there being at this time several 
gentlemen, in all respects very well qualified, 
and in possession of good preferments and fair 
prospects at home, who, having seriously con- 
sidered the great benefits that may arise to the 
Church and to Mankind from such an under- 



SAMUEL RICHARDSON 



221 



taking, arc ready to engage in it, and to dedi- 
cate the remainder of their lives to the instruct- 
ing the youth of America, and prosecuting their 
own studies, upon a very moderate subsistence, 
in a retirement, so sweet and so secure, and 
every way so well fitted for a place of education 
and study, as Bermuda. 

Thus much the writer hereof thought him- 
self obliged to say of his associates. For him- 
self he can only say that, as he values no pre- 
ferment upon earth so much as that of being 
employed in the execution of this design, so 
he hopes to make up for other defects, by the 
sincerity of his endeavours. * * * 

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761) 

THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE 

LETTER XVI 

Miss Clarissa Harlowe to Miss Howe 

Friday, March 3. 
Oh my dear friend, I have had a sad conflict ! 
Trial upon trial; conference upon conference! 

— But what law, what ceremony, can give a 
man a right to a heart which abhors him more 
than it does any living creature? 

I hope my mother will be able to prevail 
for me. — But I will recount all, though I 
sit up the whole night to do it; for 1 have a 
vast deal to write, and will be as minute as you 
wish me to be. 

I concluded my last in a fright. It was 
occasioned by a conversation that passed be- 
tween my mother and my aunt, part of which 
Hannah overheard. I need not give you the 
particulars; since what I have to relate to you 
from different conversations that have passed 
between my mother and me, in the space of a 
very few hours, will include them all. I will 
begin then. 

I went down this morning when breakfast was 
ready with a very uneasy heart, from what 
Hannah had informed me of yesterday after- 
noon; wishing for an opportunity, however, to 
appeal to my mother, in hopes to engage' her 
interest in my behalf, and purposing to try to 
find one when she retired to her own apartment 
after breakfast: but unluckily there was the 
odious Solmes sitting asquat between my mother 
and sister, with so much assurance in his looks! 

— But you know, my dear, that those we love 
not cannot do anything to please us. 

Had the wretch kept his seat, it might have 
been well enough: but the bent and broad- 



shouldered creature must needs rise, and 
stalk towards a chair, which was just by that 
which was set for me. 

I removed it to a distance, as if to make way 
to my own: and down I sat, abruptly I believe; 
what I had heard all in my head. 

But this was not enough to daunt him. The 
man is a very confident, he is a very bold, staring 
man ! — Indeed, my dear, the man is very 
confident. 

He took the removed chair, and drew it so 
near mine, squatting in it with his ugly weight, 
that he pressed upon my hoop. — I was so 
offended (all I had heard, as I said, in my 
head) that I removed to another chair. I own 
I had too little command of myself. It gave 
my brother and sister too much advantage. 
I daresay they took it. But I did it involun- 
tarily, I think. I could not help it. — I knew 
not what I did. 

I saw that my father was excessively dis- 
pleased. When angry, no man's countenance 
ever shows it so much as my father's. "Clarissa 
Harlowe ! " said he with a big voice — and there 
he stopped. — "Sir," said I, trembling and 
courtesying (for I had not then sat down again) ; 
and put my chair nearer the wretch, and sat 
down — my face, as I could feel, all in a glow. 

"Make tea, child," said my kind mamma: 
"sit by me, love, and make tea." 

I removed with pleasure to the seat the man 
had quitted; and being thus indulgently put 
into employment, soon recovered myself; and 
in the course of the breakfasting officiously 
asked two or three questions of Mr. Solmes, 
which I would not have done, but to make 
up with my father. — "Proud spirits maybe 
brought to!" whisperingly spoke my sister to 
me over her shoulder, with an air of triumph 
and scorn : but I did not mind her. 

My mother was all kindness and conde- 
scension. I asked her once, if she were pleased 
with the tea? She said softly (and again called 
me dear) she was pleased with all I did. I was 
very proud of this encouraging goodness: and 
all blew over, as I hoped, between my father 
and me ; for he also spoke kindly to me two or 
three times. 

Small accidents these, my dear, to trouble you 
with ; only as they lead to greater, as you shall 
hear. 

Before the usual breakfast-time was over, 
my father withdrew with my mother, telling 
her he wanted to speak to her. Then my 
sister and next my aunt (who was with us) 
dropped away. 



222 



SAMUEL RICHARDSON 



My brother gave himself some airs of insult, 
which I understood well enough; but which 
Mr. Solmes could make nothing of: and at last 
he arose from his seat — "Sister," said he, "I 
have a curiosity to show you. I will fetch it." 
And away he went shutting the door close after 
him. 

I saw what all this was for. I arose ; the man 
hemming up for a speech, rising and beginning 
to set his splay-feet (indeed, my dear, the man 
in all his ways is hateful to me) in an approach- 
ing posture. — "I will save my brother the 
trouble of bringing to me his curiosity," said 
I. I courtesied — "Your servant, sir!" — 
The man cried, " Madam, madam," twice, 
and looked like a fool. — But away I went — to 
find my brother, to save my word. — But my 
brother, indifferent as the weather was, was 
gone to walk in the garden with my sister. A 
plain case that he had left his curiosity with me, 
and designed to show me no other. 

I had but just got into my own apartment, and 
began to think of sending Hannah to beg an 
audience of my mother (the more encouraged 
by her condescending goodness at breakfast), 
when Shorey, her woman, brought me her com- 
mands to attend her in her closet. 

My father, Hannah told me, was just gone 
out of it with a positive angry countenance. 
Then I as much dreaded the audience as I had 
wished for it before. 

I went down, however; but apprehending the 
subject she intended to talk to me upon, ap- 
proached her trembling, and my heart in visible 
palpitations. 

She saw my concern. Holding out her kind 
arms, as she sat, "Come, kiss me, my dear," 
said she, with a smile like a sunbeam breaking 
through the cloud that overshadowed her 
naturally benign aspect — "why flutters my 
jewel so?" 

This preparative sweetness, with her good- 
ness just before, confirmed my apprehensions. 
My mother saw the bitter pill wanted gilding. 

"Oh, my mamma!" was all I could say; 
and I clasped my arms round her neck, and my 
face sunk into her bosom. 

"My child! my child! restrain," said she, 
"your powers of moving ! I dare not else trust 
myself with you." — And my tears trickled 
down her bosom, as hers bedewed my neck. 

Oh the words of kindness, all to be expressed 
in vain, that flowed from her lips! 

"Lift up your sweet face, my best child, 
my own Clarissa Harlowe ! — Oh, my daughter, 
best beloved of my heart, lift up a face so ever 



amiable to me! — Why these sobs? — Is an 
apprehended duty so affecting a thing, that 
before I can speak — but I am glad, my love, 
you can guess at what I have to say to you. 
I am spared the pains of breaking to you what 
was a task upon me reluctantly enough under- 
taken to break to you." 

Then rising, she drew a chair near her own, 
and made me sit down by her, overwhelmed 
as I was with tears of apprehension of what she 
had to say, and of gratitude for her truly ma- 
ternal goodness to me — sobs still my only lan- 
guage. 

And drawing her chair still nearer to mine, 
she put her arms round my neck, and my 
glowing cheek wet with my tears, close to her 
own: "Let me talk to you, my child. Since 
silence is your choice, hearken to me, and be 
silent. 

"You know, my dear, what I every day 
forego, and undergo, for the sake of peace. 
Your papa is a very good man, and means 
well; but he will not be controlled; nor yet 
persuaded. You have sometimes seemed to 
pity me, that I am obliged to give up every point. 
Poor man ! his reputation the less for it; mine 
the greater; yet would I not have this credit 
if I could help it, at so dear a rate to him and 
to myself. You are a dutiful, a prudent, and a 
wise child," she was pleased to say, in hope, 
no doubt, to make me so: "you would not add, 
I am sure, to my trouble: you would not wil- 
fully break that peace which costs your mother 
so much to preserve. Obedience is bitter 
than sacrifice. Oh, my Clary Harlowe, re- 
joice my heart, by telling me I have appre- 
hended too much ! — I see your concern ! I 
see your perplexity ! I see your conflict (loosing 
her arm, and rising, not willing I should see 
how much she herself was affected). I will 
leave you a moment. — Answer me not — 
(for I was essaying to speak, and had, as soon 
as she took her dear cheek from mine, dropped 
down on my knees, my hands clasped, and 
lifted up in a supplicating manner) — I am 
not prepared for your irresistible expostula- 
tion," she was pleased to say. "I will leave you 
to recollection: and I charge you, on my 
blessing, that all this my truly maternal ten- 
derness be not thrown away upon you." 

And then she withdrew into the next apart- 
ment; wiping her eyes as she went from me; 
as mine overflowed; my heart taking in the 
whole compass of her meaning. 

She soon returned, having recovered more 
steadiness. 



THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE 



223 



Still on my knees, I had thrown my face 
across the chair she had sat in. 

"Look up to me, my Clary Harlowe — No 
sullenness, I hope !" 

"No, indeed, my ever to-be-revered mamma." 
— And I arose. I bent my knee. 

She raised me. "No kneeling to me, but 
with knees of duty and compliance. Your 
heart, not your knees, must bend. It is ab- 
solutely determined. Prepare yourself there- 
fore to receive your father, when he visits you 
by and by, as he would wish to receive you. 
But on this one quarter of an hour depends 
the peace of my future life, the satisfaction of 
all the family, and your own security from a 
man of violence: and I charge you besides, 
on my blessing, that you think of being Mrs. 
Solmes." 

There went the dagger to my heart, and down 
I sunk: and when I recovered found myself 
in the arms of my Hannah, my sister's Betty 
holding open my reluctantly-opened palm, my 
laces cut, my linen scented with hartshorn; 
and my mother gone. Had I been less kindly 
treated, the hated name still forborne to be 
mentioned, or mentioned with a little more 
preparation and reserve, I had stood the horrid 
sound with less visible emotion — but to be 
bid, on the blessing of a mother so dearly be- 
loved, so truly reverenced, to think of being 
Mrs. Solmes — what a denunciation was that ! 

Shorey came in with a message (delivered in 
her solemn way): "Your mamma, Miss, is 
concerned for your disorder : she expects you 
down again in an hour; and bid me say, 
that she then hopes everything from your 
duty." 

I made no reply; for what could I say? 
And leaning upon my Hannah's arm, withdrew 
to my own apartment. There you will guess 
how the greatest part of the hour was em- 
ployed. 

Within that time my mother came up to me. 

"I love," she was pleased to say, "to come 
into this apartment. — No emotions, child! 
No flutters! — Am I not your mother? Am 
I not your fond, your indulgent mother? — Do 
not discompose me by discomposing yourself! 
Do not occasion me uneasiness, when I would 
give you nothing but pleasure. Come, my dear, 
we will go into your closet." 

She took my hand, led the way, and made me 
sit down by her: and after she had inquired 
how I did, she began in a strain as if she had 
supposed I had made use of the intervening 
space to overcome all my objections. 



She was pleased to tell me, that my father 
and she, in order to spare my natural modesty, 
had taken the whole affair upon themselves — 

"Hear me out; and then speak;" for I 
was going to expostulate. "You are no stranger 
to the end of Mr. Solmes's visits — " 

"O Madam!—" 

"Hear me out; and then speak. — He is 
not indeed everything I wish him to be; but 
he is a man of probity, and has no vices — " 

"No vices, Madam! — " 

"Hear me out, child. — You have not be- 
haved much amiss to him: we have seen with 
pleasure that you have not — " 

"O Madam, must I not now speak!" 

"I shall have done presently. — A young 
creature of your virtuous and pious turn," 
she was pleased to say, "cannot surely love 
a profligate: you love your brother too well, 
to wish to marry one who had like to have 
killed him, and who threatened your uncles, 
and defies us all. You have had your own way 
six or seven times: we want to secure you against 
a man so vile. Tell me (I have a right to know) 
whether you prefer this man to all others? — 
Yet God forbid that I should know you do; 
for such a declaration would make us all mis- 
erable. Yet tell me, are your affections en- 
gaged to this man?" 

I knew what the inference would be, if I 
had said they were not. 

"You hesitate — You answer me not — 
You cannot answer me." — Rising — "Never 
more will I look upon you with an eye of 
favour — " 

"O Madam, Madam! Kill me not with 
your displeasure — I would not, I need not, 
hesitate one moment, did I not dread the in- 
ference, if I answer you as you wish. — Yet be 
that inference what it will, your threatened dis- 
pleasure will make me speak. And I declare 
to you, that I know not my own heart, if it be 
not absolutely free. And pray, let me ask my 
dearest mamma, in what has my conduct been 
faulty, that, like a giddy creature, I must be 
forced to marry, to save me from — from what ? 
Let me beseech you, Madam, to be the guar- 
dian of my reputation ! Let not your Clarissa 
be precipitated into a state she wishes not to 
enter into with any man ! And this upon a 
supposition that otherwise she shall marry 
herself, and disgrace her whole family." 

"Well then, Clary (passing over- the force 
of my plea), if your heart be free — " 

"Oh, my beloved mamma, let the usual 
generosity of your dear heart operate in my 



224 



SAMUEL RICHARDSON 



favour. Urge not upon me the inference that 
made me hesitate." 

"I won't be interrupted, Clary — You have 
seen, in my behaviour to you on this occasion, 
a truly maternal tenderness ; you have observed 
that I have undertaken the task with some re- 
luctance, because the man is not everything; 
and because I know you carry your notions of 
perfection in a man too high — " 

"Dearest Madam, this one time excuse me! 
— Is there then any danger that I should be 
guilty of an imprudent thing for the man's sake 
you hint at?" 

"Again interrupted! — Am I to be ques- 
tioned, and argued with? You know this 
won't do somewhere else. You know it won't. 
What reason then, ungenerous girl, can you 
have for arguing with me thus, but because you 
think from my indulgence to you, you may?" 

" What can I say? What caw I do? What 
must that cause be that will not bear being 
argued upon?" 

"Again! Clary Harlowe!" 

"Dearest Madam, forgive me: it was always 
my pride and my pleasure to obey you. But 
look upon that man — see but the disagree- 
ableness of his person — " 

"Now, Clary, do I see whose person you have 
in your eye ! — Now is Mr. Solmes, I see, but 
comparatively disagreeable; disagreeable only 
as another man has a much more specious 
person." 

"But, Madam, are not his manners equally 
so? — Is not his person the true representa- 
tive of his mind ? — That other man is not, 
shall not be, anything to me, release me but 
from this one man, whom my heart, unbidden, 
resists." 

"Condition thus with your father. Will he 
bear, do you think, to be thus dialogued with? 
Have I not conjured you, as you value my 
peace — What is it that / do not give up? — 
This very task, because I apprehended you 
would not be easily persuaded, is a task in- 
deed upon me. And will you give up nothing? 
Have you not refused as many as have been 
offered to you? If you would not have us 
guess for whom, comply; for comply you must, 
or be looked upon as in a state of defiance with 
your whole family." 

And saying this, she arose, and went from 
me. But at the chamber-door stopped; and 
turned back: "I will not say below in what 
disposition I leave you. Consider of every- 
thing. The matter is resolved upon. As 
you value your father's blessing and mine, 



and the satisfaction of all the family, resolve 
to comply. I will leave you for a few moments. 
I will come up to you again. See that I find 
you as I wish to find you; and since your 
heart is free, let your duty govern it." 

In about half an hour, my mother returned. 
She found me in tears. She took my hand: 
"It is my part evermore," said she, "to be of 
the acknowledging side. I believe I have 
needlessly exposed myself to your opposition, 
by the method I have taken with you. I first 
began as if I expected a denial, and by my 
indulgence brought it upon myself." 

" Do not, my dearest mamma ! do not say 
so!" 

"Were the occasion for this debate," pro- 
ceeded she, "to have risen from myself; were 
it in my power to dispense with your com- 
pliance; you too well know what you can do 
with me." 

Would anybody, my dear Miss Howe, wish 
to marry, who sees a wife of such a temper, and 
blessed with such an understanding as my 
mother is noted for, not only deprived of all 
power, but obliged to be even active in bringing 
to bear points of high importance, which she 
thinks ought not to be insisted upon? 

" When I came to you a second time," pro- 
ceeded she, "knowing that your opposition 
would avail you nothing, I refused to hear 
your reasons: and in this I was wrong too, 
because a young creature who loves to reason, 
and used to love to be convinced "by reason, 
ought to have all her objections heard: I now 
therefore, this third time, see you; and am 
come resolved to hear all you have to say: 
and let me, my dear, by my patience, engage 
your gratitude; your generosity, I will call it, 
because it is to you I speak, who used to have 
a mind wholly generous. — Let me, if your 
heart be really free, let me see what it will induce 
you to do to oblige me: and so as you permit 
your usual discretion to govern you, I will hear 
all you have to say; but with this intimation, 
that say what you will, it will be of no avail 
elsewhere." 

"What a dreadful saying is that! But 
could I engage your pity, Madam, it would be 
somewhat." 

"You have as much of my pity as of my love. 
But what is person, Clary, with one of your 
prudence, and your heart disengaged?'" 

"Should the eye be disgusted, when the heart 
is to be engaged? — O Madam, who can think 
of marrying when the heart is shocked at the 
first appearance, and where the disgust must 



THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE 



225 



be confirmed by every conversation after- 
wards?" 

"This, Clary, is owing to your prepossession. 
Let me not have cause to regret that noble 
firmness of mind in so young a creature which 
I thought your glory, and which was my boast 
in your character. In this instance it would be 
obstinacy, and want of duty. — Have you not 
made objections to several — " 

"That was to their minds, to their principles, 
Madam. — But this man — " 

"Is an honest man, Clary. Harlowe. He has 
a good mind. He is a virtuous man." 

" He an honest man? His a good mind, 
Madam? He a virtuous man? — " 

"Nobody denies him these qualities." 

"Can he be an honest man who offers terms 
that will rob all his own relations of their just 
expectations? — Can his mind be good — " 

"You, Clary Harlowe, for whose sake he 
offers so much, are the last person that should 
make this observation." 

" Give me leave to say, Madam, that a person 
preferring happiness to fortune, as I do; that 
want not even what I have, and can give up 
the use of that, as an instance of duty — " 

"No more, no more of your merits! — You 
know you will be a gainer by that cheerful 
instance of your duty; not a loser. You know 
you have but cast your bread upon the waters — 
so no more of that ! — For it is not understood 
as a merit by everybody, I assure you; though 
I think it a high one ; and so did your father and 
uncles at the time — " 

"At the time, Madam! — How unworthily 
do my brother and sister, who are afraid that 
the favour I was so lately in — " 

"I hear nothing against your brother and 
sister. What family feuds have I in prospect, 
at a time when I hoped to have most comfort 
from you all !" 

"God bless my brother and sister in all 
their worthy views ! You shall have no family 
feuds if I can prevent them. You yourself, 
Madam, shall tell me what I shall bear from 
them, and I will bear it: but let my actions, 
not their misrepresentations (as I am sure by 
the disgraceful prohibitions I have met with has 
been the case), speak for me." 

Just then up came my father, with a stern- 
ness in his looks that made me tremble. — He 
took two or three turns about my chamber, 
though pained by his gout; and then said to 
my mother, who was silent as soon as she saw 
him — 

"My dear, you are long absent. — Dinner 



is near ready. What you had to say lay in a 
very little compass. Surely you have nothing 
to do but to declare your will, and my will — 
but perhaps you may be talking of the prepa- 
rations — let us have you soon down — your 
daughter in your hand, if worthy of the 
name." 

And down he went, casting his eye upon me 
with a look so stern, that I was unable to say 
one word to him, or even for a few minutes to 
my mother. 

Was not this very intimidating, my dear? 

My mother, seeing my concern, seemed 
to pity me. She called me her good child, 
and kissed me; and told me that my father 
should not know I had made such opposition. 
"He has kindly furnished us with an excuse 
for being so long together," said she. — "Come, 
my dear — dinner will be upon table pres- 
ently — shall we go down?" — And took my 
hand. 

This made me start: "What, Madam, go 
down to let it be supposed we were talking 
of preparations! — Oh, my beloved mamma, 
command me not down upon such a supposi- 
tion." 

"You see, child, that to stay longer together, 
will be owning that you are debating about an 
absolute duty; and that will not be borne. 
Did not your father himself some days ago tell 
you he would be obeyed? I will a third time 
leave you. I must say something by way of 
excuse for you: and that you desire not to go 
down to dinner — that your modesty on the 
occasion — " 

"O Madam! say not my modesty on such 
an occasion: for that will be to give hope — " 

"And design you not to give hope? — Per- 
verse girl!" — Rising and flinging from me; 
"take more time for consideration! — Since 
it is necessary, take more time — and when I 
see you next, let me know what blame I have 
to cast upon myself, or to bear from your 
father, for my indulgence to you." 

She made, however, a little stop at the cham- 
ber-door; and seemed to expect that I would 
have besought her to make the gentlest con- 
struction for me; for, hesitating, she was 
pleased to say, "I suppose you would not have 
me make a report — " 

"O Madam!" interrupted I, "whose favour 
can I hope for, if I lose my mamma's?" 

To have desired a favourable report, you 
know, my dear, would have been qualifying 
upon a point that I was too much determined 
upon, to give room for any of my friends to 



."-•(> 



11KNKY I'll'.I.DlNC 



think I have the leasl hesitation about it. And 
so my mother went down stairs. 

I will deposit thus far; and as 1 know you 
will m»i think me too minute in the relation of 
particulars so very interesting to one you hon- 
our with your love, proceed in the same way. 
As matters stand, l don't care to have papers 
so Freelj w i itten about me. 

Pray Ie1 Robert call every day, if you can 
spare him, whether 1 have anything ready or 
not 

I should he glad you would not send him 
empty handed. \\ h.n .1 generosity will it he 
in you, 10 write as frequently from friendship 
as I am forced to do from misfortune! The 
letters being taken away will be an assurance 
that you have them, As l shall write and de 
posit as 1 have opportunity, the formality of 
super and sub scription will he excused. For 

1 need not say how nnii'h I am 

Your sincere and ever affectionate 

CI. Harlowe, 

HKNUY Id KM) INC (1707 1754) 

TOM JONES 

Hook I 



Chap 



1. Tiii'' Introduction ro rms Work, 
ok Una. os Fare ro rHE Feast 



An author ought to consider himself, not as 
a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosy- 
nary treat, but rather as one who keeps a pub- 
lic ordinary, at which all persons are welcome 

for their money. In the former ease, it is well 
known that the entertainer provides what fare 
he pleases; and though this should l>e very 

indifferent an. I utterly disagreeable to the taste 
of his company, they must not find any fault: 
nay, ow the contrary, i^ood breeding forces 
them outwardly to approve and to commend 

whatever is set before them. Now the eon 

trary of this happens to the master of an 
ordinary: men who pay for what they eal, 
will insist on gratifying their palates, however 

nice and whimsical these may prove; and if 
everything is not agreeable to their taste, will 
challenge a righl to censure, to abuse, and to 

d n their dinner without control, 

To prevent, therefore, giving offence to their 
customers by any such disappointment, it 

has been usual with the honest and well 
meaning host to provide a Kill oi fare, which all 
persons may peruse at their first entrance into 

the house; and, having thence acquainted 



themselves with the entertainment which they 

may expect, may either slay and regale with 
what is provided for them, or may depart to 

some other ordinary better accommodated to 

their laste. 

As we do not disdain to horrow wit or wisdom 
from any man who is capable of lending us 

either, we have condescended to take a hint 

from these honest victuallers, am! shall prefix 
not only a general bill of fare to our whole 
entertainment, but shall likewise give the 
reader particular hills to every eourse which is 
lo he Sd wd up in this volume. 

The provision, then, whieh we have here 
made, is no Other than Human Nature: nor do 
1 fear that my sensible reader, though most 
luxurious in his taste, will start, cavil, or he 
offended because I have named lint one article 
The tortoise, as the alderman of Bristol, well 

learned in eating, knows by much experience, 

besides the delicious calipash and calipee, con 
tains many different kinds of food; nor can the 
learned reader he ignorant, that in human 

nature, though here collected under one general 

name, is such prodigious variety, thai a cook 
will have sooner gone through all the several 
species of animal and vegetable food in the 
world, than an author will he able to exhaust 
so extensive a subject. 

An objection may perhaps he apprehended 

from the more delicate, that this dish is too 

common and vulgar; for what else -is the sub 

ject oi all tin' romances, novels, plays, and 
poems, with which the stalls abound? Many 

exquisite viands might he rejected by the epi- 
cure, if it was a Sufficient cause for his contemn 
ing of them as common and vulgar, that some 
thing was lo he found in the most paltry alleys 
under the same name. In reality, true nature 
is as difficult to he met with in authors, as the 

Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage, is to be 

found in the shops. 

hut the whole, to continue the same meta- 
phor, consists in the cookery of the author; 
for, as Mr. hope tells us, 

True wit is nature t>> advantage dress'd; 

What oil was thought, tun lie'ei SO well expressed. 

The same animal which hath the honour to 
have some part of his tlesh eaten at the table 

of a duke, may perhaps he degraded in another 

part, and some of his limhs gibbetted, as it 
were, in the vilest stall in town. Where then 

lies the difference between the food of the noble- 
man and the porter, if both are at dinner on the 



TOM JONES 



227 



same ox <>r calf, but in the seasoning, the dress- 
ing, the garnishing, and the setting forth? 
Hence the one provokes and incites the most 
languid appetite, and the other turns and palls 

thai which is the sharpest and keenest. 

In like manner the excellence of the menial 
entertainment consists less in the subject than 
in the author's skill in well dressing it up. 

I low pleased, therefore, will I he reader be to find 
thai we have, in the following work, adhered 

closely to one of die highesl principles of tin: 

best cook which the present age, or perhaps that 

of Heliogabalus, hath produced? This great 

man, as is well known to all lovers of polite 

eating, begins at fust by setting plain things 

before his hungry guests, rising afterwards by 

degrees, as their stomachs may be supposed to 

decrease, to the very quintessence of sauce and 

spices. In like manner we shall represent 
human nature at first, t<> the keen appetite 
of our reader, in that more plain and simple 
manner in which it is found in die country, 
and shall hereafter hash and ragOUl it with 
all the high French and Italian seasoning of 

affectation and vice which COUrtS and cilies 
afford, by these means, we doubt not but our 
reader may be rendered desirous to read on for 
ever, as the great person just above mentioned 
is supposed to have made some persons eal. 

Having premised thus much, we will now 
detain those who like our bill of fare no longer 
from their diet, and shall proceed directly to 
serve up (he first course of our history for their 
entertainment 

BOOK II 
Chap. r. — Showing what Kind of History 

I III:, is; WHAT 1 1 IS LIKE, AND WHAT 
IT IS NOT I. IKK 

Though we have properly enough entitled 
this our work a history, and not a life; nor an 
apology for a life, as is more in fashion; yet we 
intend in it rather to pursue the method of 
those writers who profess to disclose the revo- 
lutions of countries, than to imitate the painful 
and voluminous historian, who, to preserve the 

regularity of his series, thinks himself obliged 

to fill up as much paper with the details of 
months and years in which nothing remarkable 
happened, as he employs upon those notable 
eras when the greatest scenes have been trans- 
acted on the human stage. Such histories as 
these do in reality very much resemble a news- 
paper, which consists of just the same number 
of words, whether there' be any news in it or not. 



They may likewise be compared to a sta^e 
coach, which performs constantly the same 
course empty as well as full: the writer indeed 
seems to think himself obliged to keep even 
pace with Time, whose amanuensis he is; 
and like his master, travels as slowly through 
centuries of monkish dulncss, when the' world 
seems to have been asleep, as through that 
bright and busy age so nobly distinguished by 
the excellent Latin poet: 

Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poems, 
Omni. 1 1 inn belli trepido concussa tumultu 
Korrida contremuere sub altis aetheris amis; 
In dubioque luii Mil) 111 1 < . 1 1 1 1 1 1 regna 1 adendum 
Omnibus humanis esset, terraque manque: 

of which we wish we could j^ive our reader a 
more adequate translation than that by Mr. 
Creech: 

When dreadful Carthage frighted Rome vvitli arms, 
Ami all the world was shook with fierce alarms; 
Whilst undee i'l< d yd which part should fall, 
Which nation rise the glorious lord of all. 

Now it is our purpose, in the ensuing pages, 
to pursue a contrary method : when any e\lraor 

dinary scene presents itself, as we trust will 

often be the case, we shall spare no pains nor 

paper to open it at large t<> our reader; but if 

whole years should pass without producing any 
thing worthy his notice, we shall not be afraid 
of a chasm in our history, but shall hasten on 
to matters of consequence, and leave such pe 
riods of time totally unobserved. These are 
indeed to be considered as blanks in the grand 
lottery of Time: we therefore, who are the regis 
tersof that lottery, shall imitate those sagacious 
persons who deal in that which is drawn at 
Guildhall, and who never trouble the public 
with the many blanks they dispose of; but when 
a great prize happens to be drawn, the news 
papers are presently filled with it, and the 
world is sure to be informed at whose office it 
was sold: indeed commonly two or three elif 
ferenl offices lay claim to the honour of having 
disposed of it; by which T suppose the ad 
venturers are given to understand that certain 
brokers are in the secrets of Fortune, and in- 
deed of her cabinet council. 

My reader then is nol to be surprised, if in 
the course of this work he shall find sonic: 
chapters very short and others altogether as 
long; some that contain only the lime' of a 
single day and others that comprise years; in 
a word, if my history sometimes seems to stand 
still, and sometimes to lly: for all which I shall 



EIKNKY l II I DING 




im.m i..iihi\ .inn . m . i nun . i>ni|'i\ , i in i iirici>\ i < .1 . <i « . .ii \\\v noiioin, (IHHlgll we .in- imlxi 

assure them thai I shall principally regard tunately not able to see so foi Now in realitj 

theii ease and advantage In nil such institu the world have paid too great .i compliment 

lions: foi i do not, likes tyrant, to critics, and have imagined them men of much 

imagine that the) are mj slaves oi mj com greater profundity than they really are From this 

modit) i .mi Indeed sel ovei them foi theii complaisance the critics have been emboldened 

own good only, and was created Foi theii use to assume a dictatorial power, and have bo fai 

•in. I not the) foi mine; noi do I doubt, while succeeded that they have now become the mas 

i make theii Interesl the greal rule oi mj ters, and have the assurance to give laws to 

writings, thej will unanimously concvu in sup those authors from whose predecessors they 

porting mj dignity, and In rendering me .ill originally received them rhe critic, rightly 

the honoui I shall deserve oi desire idered, is no more than the clerk, wnose 

oflu c K is to transi i ibe the i ules and lav ■ laid 

BOOK \ down b) thoso great judges, whose vast strength 

Our i ok tiik skkioui in Wfeirnra urn pf genius has placed them in the light of legis 

,,,,. WIIAT r , ,.,.,„,, n ,., kik.mm . 1 1. mon in the several sciences ovei which they 

presided this office w as all w hi< li the critics 

Peradventure there maj be no parts in this oi old aspired to; noi did they evei dare to 

prodigious work which wfll give the readei less advance o sentence, without supporting it b) 

pleasure In the perusing, than those which the authority oi the Judge from whence ii was 

nave given the author the greatest pain in com borrowed, But in process oi time, and in 

posing Vmong these prolmblj ma) be reck ages of ignorance, the clerk began to invade the 

oned those initial essays which we have prefixed powei and assume the dignit) oi his master; 

iv> the historical inattei contained In everj the laws of writing were no longei founded on 

book; and which we have determined to be the practice oi the author, but on the dictates 

essential!) necessary to this kind oi writing, of the critii the clerk became the legislator, 

oi which we have set ourselves at the head and those ver) peremptoril) gave laws whose 

Foi thisoui determination we do not hold oui business it was at first onlj to transi ribe them, 

selves strict)} bound to assign anj reason; it Hence arose an obvious and perhaps an un 

being abundantly sufficient that we have laid avoidable error; for these critics, being men of 

It down as a rule necessary to be observed in all shallow capacities, ven easil) mistook mere 

prosai-coml-epii writing Who ever demanded form foi substance: the) acted as ■ judge 

the reasons oi that nice unit} oi timeoi place would who should adhere to the lifeless lettei 

which is now established to be so essential to oi law, and reject the spirit l ittle circum 

dramatii poetr) ' What critii has evei been stances, which were perhaps accidental In -\ 

asked, whj n plaj ma) not contain two days great author, were b) these critics considered to 




attempted to explain what the modern judges common!) serve foi no other purpose than i>> 

oi oui theatres mean bj that word I .>w , b) curb and restrain genius in the same mannei 
which thej have happil) •-u...v.h-.l in lunish w. ml. I haw ivstrained the dancing master, 

ing all humoui from the stage, and have made had the man) excellent treatises on that art 

the theatre as dull as a drawing-room? Upon laid it down as an essential rule that ever) 

all these occasions ih<- world seems t.> have man must dance in chains r>< avoid, there 






TOM JONKS 



229 



fore, all imputation <>f laying down a rule for 
posterity, founded only <>n the authority >>i 
ipse dixit, for which, i<» say the truth, we 
have mil the profoundesl veneration, we 
shall here waive the privilege above contended 
for, and proceed to lay before the reader the 

reasons vvhieh have inclined US to intersperse 

these several digressive essays in die course of 

diis work. And here we shall of necessity be 
led to Open a new vein of knowledge, which, if 

ii has been discovered, has nol to our remem 
brance been wrought on 1 >y any ancient or 
lern writer: this vein is no oilier than dial 

11I contrast, which runs through all die works 

iii the creation, and may probably have a large 

share in constituting in us I he idea of all beauty, 

as well natural as artificial: for what demon 
strates du- beauty and excellence of anything 

hul ils reverse? Thus (he beauty of day, and 
thai of Summer, is set off |>y the horrors of night 

and winter; and I believe, if ii was possible 

I111 a man In have seei |y ihe Ivvo foinier, 

he would have a very imperfect idea of their 
beauty. Hut to avoid loo serious an air; em 

it be doubted bul that the finest woman in the 

world would lose all benefit of her i harms in 
the eyes of a man who had never seen one of 
another Cast? The ladies themselves seem 

so sensible of this, that Ihey are all induslii I 

to procure foils; nay, they will become foils 

io themselves: for I have observed, at Bath 
particularly, that they endeavour io appear as 
ugly as possible in the morning, in order to set 

off lhal beauty whi< Ii they intend to show you 
in Ihe evening. Most artists have this secret 
in practice, though some perhaps have nol 
nun h studied the theory; ihe jeweller knows 
that Ihe finest brilliant requires a foil; and 

the painter, by ihe contrast ol hi:, figures, often 
acquires greal applause. 
A great genius among us will illustrate this 

mallei fully. I cannot indeed range him under 
any general head of common artists, as he has a 
title to be plat ed anion)', those 

tnvi nt. -is i|ui vit.i.m cxi oluerc per artei : 
Who l»y Invented arts have life improved. 

I mean here, ihe inventor of lhal most exquisite 

entertainment, (ailed the English pantomime. 
This entertainment consisted of two parts, 
which the inventor distinguished by the nanus 

ol the serious and ihe comic. The serious ex- 
hibited a certain number of heathen gods ami 

heroes, who were ccrlainly the worsl and dullest 
company info which an audience was ever in- 



troduced; and, which was a secret known to 
few, were actually intended so Io he, in order Io 

contrast ihe comic pari of the entertainment, 

and io display ihe n i< i : , ol l larlequin Io the 
better advantage. This was, perhaps, no i/ery 

civil use of such personages, bul Ihe contriv 
.'line was, nevertheless, ingenious enough, 

and had its effect. And this will now plainly 

appear, if, instead of serious and comic, we 
supply the words duller and dullest, for Ihe 
comic was Certainly chiller than anything before- 
shown on Ihe Stage, and could be sel oil only 

by dial superlative degree of dullness which 

composed Ihe- serious. So intolerably serious, 

indeed, were these gods and heroes, that Harle 
quin (though the English gentleman of that 

name is nol at all related Io Ihe French family, 
for he is of a much more serious disposition) 
was always welcome on ihe stage, as he relieved 
the- audience from worse- company Judicious 
writers have always practised this art of con 

trast, with greal success. I have been surprised 

lhal I Imai e should I avil at this art ill I louiei ; 
bul, indeed, he eonlradiels himself in Ihe vi ay 
next line: 

[ndignoi quandoque bonus dormitat Elomerus, 
Vriiini opere iii longo i.e. est obrepere somnum ! 

I pi ieve il e'ei gi eat 1 [omei 1 linn e in sleep; 
Nil slumbers mi long works have right in 1 reep: 

for we are nol here Io understand, as perhaps 
sunn have, thai an author actually falls asleep 
while he is writing. It is true- thai readers arc- 
loo api to be so overtaken. Bul if ihe work 

was as long as any of Oldmixon, Ihe author 

liiniself is too well entertained to be subject 

Io Ihe least drowsiness: he: is, as Mr. Pope 

observes, 

Sleepless himself m ;m'vc his readers sleep. 

To say the truth, lliesc- soporific parts arc- so 
many serious scenes artfully interwoven, in 
order to conlrasl and sel off the- rest; and this 
is the: true meaning of a late facetious writer, 
who told Ihe public lhal, whenever he was dull, 

they might be assured there was a de-sijm in ii 
Iii this light, then, or rather in this darkness, I 

would have ihe reader Io consider these initial 
essays; and, after ihis warning, if he shall be 
of opinion that he can find enoujdi eif serious 
inolher pails of this history, he may pass over 
these, in which we profess |e> be laboriously 
dull, and begin the following books at the 

see ond chapter. 



230 



HENRY FIELDING 



BOOK \ in 

CH vr. I. \ WONDERFU] LONG ( 'n vimm; CON 

cerning mi' Marvellous; being much mm 
Longest of all our introductory Chapters 

As we arc now entering upon a book, in which 
the course of our history will oblige us to relate 
some matters of a more strange and surprising 
kind than any which have hitherto occurred, 
it may nol be amis., in the prolegomenous or 
introductory chapter, to say something of thai 
species of writing which is called the marvel 

Ions To lliis we shall, as well for the sake 

of ourselves as oi others, endeavour to sel some 
certain bounds; and, indeed, nothing can be 
nunc necessary, as critics of very different com 
plexions are here a|>i to run into very different 
extremes; for while some arc, with M, Dacier, 
ready to allow, thai the same thing which is 
impossible may ye1 be probable, others have so 
Little historic or poetic faith, thai they believe 
nothing to be either possible or probable, the 

like to which has nol occurred to their own 

observation, First, then, I think it may very 
reasonably be required of every writer, thai he 
keeps within the bounds of possibility ; and still 
remembers thai what it is nol possible for man 
to perform, it is scarce possible for man to be 
lieve he did perform. This conviction, perhaps, 

gave birth to man\' stories of the ancient heathen 

deities, for most of them are of poetical original, 

The poet, being desirous to indulge a wanton 

and extravagant imagination, took refuge in 

that power, of the extent of which his readers 

were no judges, or rather which they imagined 
to be infinite, and consequently they could nol 
be shocked at any prodigies related of it. This 
has been strongly urged in defence of Homer's 

miracles: and it is perhaps a defence; nol, as 

Mr. Tope would have it, because Ulysses told 

B Sel of lies to the I'heacians, who were a very 
dull nation; hut because the poet himself 
Wrote to heathens, to whom poetical Fables 
wen' articles of faith. 

Foi my own part, ! must confess, so com 

passionate is mv temper, 1 wish Polypheme 

had Confined himself to his milk diet, and pre 
Served his eye; nor could I flysses he much more 

concerned than myself, when his companions 

weie turned into swine by Circe, who showed, 
I think, afterwards too much regard for man's 

flesh, to he supposed capable o\ converting 

it into bacon I wish, likewise, with all mv 

heart, that Homer could have known tin- rule 

prescribed by Horace, to introduce supci 
natural agents as seldom as possible: we should 



nol then have seen his gods coming on trivial 
errands, and often behaving themselves so as 
noi only to forfeit all title to respect, but to 

become the objects of scorn and derision; a 
conduct which must have shocked the ere 
dulity of a pious and sagacious heathen; and 

which could never have been defended, unless 
by agreeing with a supposition to which I have 

been sometimes almost inclined, that this most 
gloi lOUS poet, as he certainly was, had an intent 
to burlesque the superstitious faith of his own 

age and country. Bui I have rested too long 

on a doctrine which can be of no use to a Chris- 
tian writer; for as he cannot introduce into his 
works any o\ that heavenly host which make a 

pari o\ his creed, so is it horrid puerility to 
search the heathen theology for any of those 
deities who have been long since dethroned from 

their immortality. Lord Shaftesbury observes, 

that nothing is more cold than the invocation of 
a Muse bv a modern: In- mighl have added, 
that nothing Can be more absurd. A modern 
may, with much more elegance, invoke a 
ballad, as some have thought Homer did, or a 
mug o\ ale, with the author of lludibras; 
which latter may perhaps have inspired much 
more poetry, as well as prose, than all the 

liquors of I lippocrene or I lelicon. 
The only supernatural agents which can in 

any manner be allowed to us modems, are 
ghosts; bul of these I would advise an author 
to be extremely sparing. These are indeed, 
like arsenic, and other dangerous" drugs m 
physic, to be used with the utmost caution: 
nor would I advise the introduction of them at 
all in those works, or bv those authors, to which, 
or to whom, a horse laugh in the reader would 

be anv greal prejudice or mortification. As 

for elves and fairies, and other such mununcrv, 
I purposely omit the mention of them, as 1 
should be very unwilling to confine within anv 

bounds those surprising imaginations, for 

whose vast capacity the limits oi human na 
ture are loo narrow; whose works are to be 
considered as a new creation; and who have, 
Consequently, just right to <.\o what they will 
with their own. Man, therefore, is the high- 
est subject, unless on very extraordinary occa 

SionS indeed, which presents itself to the pen 
of our historian, or of our poet ; and, in relating 
his actions, greal r;uv is to be taken that we do 
nol exceed the Capacity of the agent we de 
sink- Nor is possibility alone sufficient to 
justify us; we must keep likewise within the 

rules of probability. It is, 1 think, the opinion 

of Aristotle; or, if not, it is the opinion of some 



TOM JONES 



231 



wise man, whose authority will lie as weighty 
when i( is as old, "Thai it is no cm use for a poel 
who relates whai is incredible, thai the thing 
related is a matter of fact." This may, per 
haps, he allowed tine with regard to poetry, 
bul it may We thought impracticable to extend 

it to the historian; lor he is obliged to record 

matters as he finds them, though they may 

he of so extraordinary a nature as will require 
no small degree of historical faith to swallow 
them. Such was the successless armament 
of Xerxes, described hy Herodotus, or the sue 
Cessful expedition of Alexander, related hy 
Arrian: such of later years was the victory 

of Agincourt, obtained hy Harry the Fifth, <>r 
that of Narva, won hy Charles the Twelfth of 
Sweden : all which instances, the more we rellecl 
on them, appear still the more astonishing. 

Such facts, however, as they occur in the 
thread of the story, nay, indeed, as they con 
Stitute the essential part of it, the historian is 

not only justifiable in recording as they really 
happened, hut indeed would he unpardonable 

should he omit or alter them, lint there are 
other facts, not of such consequence nor so 

necessary, which, though ever so well attested, 
may nevertheless he sacrificed to oblivion, 

in Complaisance to the scepticism of a reader: 
SUCh is that inemorahle story of the ghost of 

George Villiers, which might with more pro- 
priety have been made a present of to Dr. 
Drelmcourt, to have kept the ghost of Mrs. 
Veale company, at the head of his "Discourse 
upon heath," than have heen introduced into 
so solemn a, work as the "History of the Rebel 
lion." To say the truth, if the historian will 
confine himself to what really happened, and 
Utterly reject any circumstance, which, though 
ever so well attested, he must he well assured 
is false, hi- will sometimes fall into the marvel 
Ions, hut never into the incredible: he will often 
raise the wonder and surprise of his reader, hut 
never that incredulous haired mentioned hy 
Horace. It is by falling into fiction therefore 
that we generally offend against this rule, of 

deserting probability, which the historian sel 

dom, if ever, quits till he forsakes his < haracler, 

and commences a writer of romance. In this, 

however, those historians who relate public 

transactions, have the advantage of us, who ('on- 
line ourselves to scenes of private life. The 
credit of the former is hy common notoriety 
supported for a long lime; and public records, 
with the concurrent testimony of many authors, 

beat evidence to their truth in future ages. 
ThusaTrajan and an Antoninus, a Nero and 



a Caligula, have all met with the belief of pos 

terity; and 1 le doubts but that men so very 

good and so very had were once I he masters of 
mankind: hut we, who deal in private (har- 
ai lei, who search into 1 he most retired recesses, 
and draw forth examples of virtue and vice 
from holes and corners of the world, are in a 
more dangerous situation. As we have no 
public notoriety, no concurrent leslimony, 
no records to supporl and corroborate what 
we deliver, it hecomes us lo keep within the 

limits noi only of possibility, bul of probability 

too; and this more especially in painting vvhal 
is greatly good and amiable. Knavery and 
folly, though ever so exorbitant, will more easily 
meet with assent, for ill nature adds great sup 

pint and strength to faith, Thus we may per- 
haps with little danger, relate the history of 
Fisher, who having long owed his bread to the 
generosity of Mr. Derby, and having one morn 
ing received a considerable bounty from his 

hands, yet in order to possess himself of what 

remained in his friend's escritoire, concealed 
himself in a public office of the Temple, through 
which there was a passage into Mr. Derby's 

Chambers. Here he overheard Mr. Derby for 
many hours Solacing himself at an entertain- 
menl which he thai evening gave his friends, 
and lo which fisher had heen invited; during 
all Ihis lime no lender, no grateful reflections 
arose to restrain his purpose; hut when the 

poor gentleman had let his company out through 

the office, I'isher came suddenly from his luif 
in" place, and, walking softly behind his friend 
into his chamber, discharged a pislol hall into 
his head. This may he believed when the 
hones of I'isher are as rollen as his heart. 

Nay, perhaps, if will he credited, that the 
villain went two days afterwards with some 
young ladies lo (he play of Hamlet, and, with 

an unaltered countenance heard one of the 

ladies, who little suspecled how near she was 
to (he person, cry out, "< rood ( lod I if the man 
thai murdered Mr. Derby was now present!" 
manifesting in this a more seared and callous 
conscience than even Nero himself; of whom 
we are told hy Suetonius, " I hal I lie conscious 

nc-ss of his guilt, after the death of his mother, 
became immediately intolerable, and so con 
tinued; nor could all the congratulations of 

the soldiers, of the senate, and the people, allay 
the horrors of his conscience." 

Hut now, on the other hand, should I tell 
my reader, thai I had known a man whose 
penetrating genius had enabled him to raise a 
large fortune in a way where no beginning was 



232 



HENRY FIELDING 



chalked out to him; that he had done this with 
the most perfect preservation of his integrity, 

and not only without the least injustice or in- 
jury to any one individual person, but with the 
highest advantage to trade, and a vast increase 
of the public revenue; that he had expended 

one part of the income of this fortune in dis- 
covering a taste superior to most, by works 
where the highest dignity was united with the 
purest simplicity, and another part in displaying 
a degree o!" goodness superior to all men, by 

aets of charity to objects whose only recom- 
mendations were their merits or their wants; 
that he was most industrious in searching after 
merit in distress, most eager to relieve it, and 
then as careful, perhaps too careful, to conceal 
what he had done; that his house, his furni- 
ture, his gardens, his table, his private hos- 
pitality, and his public beneficence, all denoted 
the mind from which they flowed, and were all 
intrinsically rich and noble, without tinsel, or 
external ostentation; that he filled every rela- 
tion in life with the most adequate virtue; 
that he was most piously religious to his Creator, 
most zealously loyal to his sovereign, a most 
tender husband to his wife, a kind relation, a 
munificent patron, a warm and linn friend, a 
knowing and a cheerful companion, indulgent 
to his servants, hospitable to his neighbours, 
charitable to the poor, and benevolent to all 
mankind: should 1 add to these the epithets 
of wise, brave, elegant, and indeed every other 
epithet in our language; 1 might surely say, 

. . . Quis credet? nemo, Herculel nemo: 

Vd duo, vel nemo: l 

and yet 1 know a man who is all I have here 
described. Hut a single instance (and 1 really 
know not such another! is not sufficient to 
justify us, while we are writing to thousands 
who never heard o\ the person, nor of anything 
like him. Such rarar aves 1 should be remitted 
to the epitaph-writer, or to some poet, who may 
condescend to hitch him in a distich, or to slide 
him into a rhyme with an air of carelessness and 
neglect, without giving any offence to the reader. 
In the last place, the actions should be such 
as may not only be within the compass of human 
agency, and which human agents may probably 
be supposed to o\o\ but they should be likely 
for the very actors and characters themselves 
to have performed; for what mav be only 
wonderful and surprising in one man, may 

'Who will believe it? No one, by Hercules 1 
no one; two at most, or none. 'rare birds 



become improbable, or indeed impossible, w hen 
related of another. This last requisite is what 
the dramatic critics call conservation of char- 
acter; and it requires a very extraordinary 

degree of judgment, and a most exact know- 
ledge of human nature. 

It is admirably remarked by a most excellent 
writer, that zeal can no more hurry a man to 
act in direct opposition to itself, than a rapid 
stream can carry a boat against its own current. 
I will venture to say, that for a man to act in 
direct contradiction to the dictates of his nature, 
is, if not impossible, as improbable and as 
miraculous as anything which can be well con- 
ceived. Should the best parts of the story of 
M. Antoninus be ascribed to Nero, or should 
the worst incidents of Xero's life be imputed to 
Antoninus, what would be more shocking to 
belief than either instance? whereas both 
these, being related of their proper agent, con- 
stitute the truly marvellous. Our modern 
authors of comedy have fallen almost univer- 
sally into the error here hinted at: their heroes 
generally are notorious rogues, ami their hero- 
ines abandoned jades, during the first four 
acts; but in the fifth, the former become very 
worthy gentlemen, and the latter women of 
virtue and discretion; nor is the writer often 
so kind as to give himself the least trouble to 
reconcile or account for this monstrous change 
and incongruity. There is indeed no other 
reason to be assigned for it, than because the 
play is drawing to a conclusion; as if it was no 
less natural in a rogue to repent in the last act 
of a play, than in the last of his life; which we 
perceive to be generally the case at Tyburn, a 
place which might indeed close the scene of 
some comedies with much propriety, as the 
heroes in these are commonly eminent for 
those very talents which not only bring men to 
the gallows, but enable them to make an heroic 
figure when they are there. 

Within these few restrictions, I think, every 
writer may be permitted to deal as much in the 
wonderful as he pleases; nay, if he thus keeps 
within the rules of credibility, the more he can 
surprise the reader, the more he will engage 
his attention, and the more he will charm him. 
As a genius of the highest rank observes in his 
fifth chapter of the Bathos,"The great art o\ 
all poetry is to mix truth with fiction, in order 
to join the credible with the surprising:" For 
though every good author will confine himself 
within the bounds oi probability, it is by no 
means necessary that his characters or his 
incidents should be trite, common, or vulgar; 



TOM JONES 



2 33 



such as happen in every street or in every house, 
or which may be met with in the home articles 
of a newspaper; nor must be be inhibited from 
showing many persons and things, which may 
possibly have never fallen within the knowledge 
of great part of his readers. If the writer 
strictly observes the rules above-mentioned, he 
has discharged his part; and is then entitled 
to some faith from his reader, who is indeed 
guilty of critical infidelity if he disbelieves him. 
I or want of a portion of such faith, I remember 
the character of a young lady of quality was 
condemned on the stage for being unnatural, 
by the unanimous voice of a very large assembly 
of clerks and apprentices, though it had the 
previous suffrages of many ladies of the first 
rank ; one of whom, very eminent for her under- 
standing, declared it was the picture of half the 
young people of her acquaintance. 

BOOK X 

Chap. I. — Containing Instructions very 

necessary to 13e perused by 

Modern Critics 

Reader, it is impossible we should know 
what sort of person thou wilt be; for perhaps 
thou mayest be as learned in human nature as 
Shakspcarc himself was, and perhaps thou 
mayest be no wiser than some of his editors. 
Now, lest this latter should be the- case, we 
think proper, before we go any farther together, 
to give thee a few wholesome admonitions, 
that thou mayest not as grossly misunderstand 
and misrepresent us, as some of the said editors 
have misunderstood and misrepresented their 
author. First, then, we warn thee not too 
hastily to condemn any of the incidents in this 
our history as impertinent and foreign to our 
main design, because thou dost not immediately 
conceive in what manner such incident may 
conduce to that design. This work may, 
indeed, be considered as a great creation of our 
own ; and for a little reptile of a critic to pre- 
sume to find fault with any of its parts, without 
knowing the manner in which the whole is 
connected, and before he comes to the final 
catastrophe, is a most presumptuous absurdity. 
The allusion and metaphor we have here made 
use of, we must acknowledge to be infinitely 
too great for our occasion ; but there is, indeed, 
no other which is at all adequate to express the 
difference between an author of the first rate 
and a critic of the lowest. Another caution we 
would give thee, my good reptile, is, that thou 



dost not find out too near a resemblance between 
certain characters here introduced; as, for 
instance, between the landlady who appears 
in the seventh book and her in the ninth. 
Thou art to know, friend, that there are certain 
characteristics in which most individuals of 
every profession and occupation agree: to be 
able to preserve these characteristics, and at the 
same time to diversify their operations, is one 
talent of a good writer. Again, to mark the 
nice distinction between two persons actuated 
by the same vice or folly, is another; and as 
this last talent is found in very few writers, 
so is the true discernment of it found in as few 
readers; though, I believe, the observation of 
this forms a very principal pleasure in those 
who are capable of the discovery. Every 
person, for instance, can distinguish between 
Sir Epicure Mammon and Sir Fopling Flutter; 
but to note the difference between Sir Fopling 
Flutter and Sir Courtly Nice requires a more 
exquisile judgment, for want of which, vulgar 
spectators of plays very often do great injustice 
in the theatre, where 1 have sometimes known 
a poet in danger of being convicted as a thief, 
upon much worse evidence than the resemblance 
of hands has been held to be in the law. In 
reality, I apprehend every amorous widow on 
the stage would run the hazard of being con- 
demned as a servile imitation of Dido, but that 
happily very few of our playhouse critics under- 
stand enough of Latin to read Virgil. 

In the next place, we must admonish thee, 
my worthy friend (for perhaps thy heart may 
be better than thy head), not to condemn a 
character as a bad one because it is not perfectly 
a good one. If thou dost delight in these 
models of perfection, there are books enow 
written to gratify thy taste; but as we have 
not, in the course of our conversation, ever 
happened to meet with any such person, we 
have not chosen to introduce any such here. 
To say the truth, I a little question whether 
mere man ever arrived at this consummate 
degree of excellence, as well as whether there 
has ever existed a monster bad enough to verify 
that 

. . . nulla virtutc redemptum 

A vitiis > . . . 

in Juvenal: nor do I, indeed, conceive the good 
purposes served by inserting characters of such 
angelic perfection, or such diabolical depravity, 
in any work of invention; since, from contem- 
plating either, the mind of man is more likely 

1 by no virtue redeemed from his vices 



234 



SAM IT. L JOHNSON 



to be overwhelmed with sorrow and shame, 
than to draw any good uses from such patterns; 
for, in the former instance, he may be both 
concerned and ashamed to see a pattern of 
excellence in his nature, which he may reason- 
ably despair of ever arriving at : and, in con- 
templating the latter, he may be no loss af- 
fected with those uneasy sensations, at seeing 
the nature, of which he is a partaker, degraded 

into SO odious and detestable B creature. In 

fact, if there be enough of goodness in a char- 
acter to engage the admiration and affection of 

a well disposed mind, though there should 
appear some of those little blemishes, quas 
hutnana parum cavii natura, 1 they will raise 
our compassion rather than OUT abhorrence. 
Indeed, nothing can he of more moral use than 
the imperfections which are seen in examples 
of this kind; since such form a kind of surprise, 
more apt to affect and dwell upon our minds, 
than the faults of very vicious anil wicked 
persons. The foihles and vices of men, in 
whom there is a great mixture o\ good, become 
more glaring objects from the virtues which 
contrast them and show their deformity; and 
when we find such vices attended with their 
evil consequence to our favourite characters, 
we are not only taught to shun them for our own 
sake, but to hate them for the mischiefs they 
have already brought on those we love. Ami 
now, my friend, having given you these few 
admonitions, we will, if you please, once more 
set forward with our history. 

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) 
CONGREVE 

William Congreve descended from a family 
in Staffordshire, of so great antiquity that it 
claims a place among the few that extend their 
lino beyond the Norman Conquest ; and was 
the son of William Congreve, second son of 
Richard Congreve, o\ Congreve and Stratton. 
He visited, once at least, the residence of his 
ancestors; and, I believe, more places than one 
arc still shown, in groves and gardens, where 
he is related to have written his "Old bach- 
elor." 

Neither the time nor place of his birth are 
certainly known; if die inscription ujxin his 
monument be true, he was born in 167a. For 
the place; it was said by himself, that he owed 

his nativity to England, and by every body 

1 which human nature too little avoids 



else that he was born in Ireland. Southern 
mentioned him with sharp censure, as a man 
that meanly disowned his native country. The 
biographers assign his nativity to Bardsa, near 

Leeds in Yorkshire, from the account given bv 
himself, as they suppose, to Jacob. 

To doubt whether a man of eminence has 

told the truth about his own birth, is, in appear- 
ance, to be very deficient in candour; vet no- 
body can live long without knowing that false- 
hoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods 
from which no evil immediately visible ensues, 
except the general degradation of human 
testimony, are very lightly Uttered, and once 
uttered are sullenly supported. Hoileau, who 

desired to be thought a rigorous and steady 
moralist, having told a petty lie to Lewis \IY, 
continued it afterwards bv false dates; "think- 
ing himself obliged in honour," says his admirer, 
"to maintain what, when he said it, was so 
well received." 

Wherever Congreve was born, he was edu- 
cated first at Kilkenny, and afterwards at 
Dublin, his father having some military employ- 
ment that stationed him in Ireland: but, after 
having passed through the usual preparatory 
studies, as may be reasonably supposed, with 
great celerity and success, his father thought it 
proper to assign him a profession, by which 
something might be gotten; and about the 
time of the Revolution sent him, at the age of 
sixteen, to study law in the Middle Temple, 
where he lived for several years, but v with very 
little attention to Statutes or Reports. 

His disposition to become an author appeared 
very early, as he very early felt that force of 
imagination, and possessed that copiousness of 
sentiment, bv which intellectual pleasure can 
be given. His first performance was a novel, 
called "Incognita, or Love and Duty recon- 
ciled:" it is praised by the biographers, who 
quote some part of the Preface, that is, indeed, 
for such a time oi life, uncommonly judicious. 
I would rather praise it than read it. 

His first dramatic labour was "The Old 
Bachelor;" of which he says, in his defence 
against Collier, "that the comedy was written, 
as several know, some years before it was acted. 
When I wrote it, I had little thoughts of the 
stage; but did it to amuse myself in a slow 
recovery from a tit of sickness. Afterwards, 
through my indiscretion, it was seen, and in 
some little time more it was acted; and I, 
through the remainder oi my indiscretion, suf- 
fered myself to be drawn into the prosecution 
of a difficult and thankless study, and to be 



CONGREVE 



2 35 



involved in a perpetual war with knaves and 
fools." 

There seems to be a strange affectation in 
authors of appearing to have done every thing 
by chance. "The Old Bachelor" was written 
for amusement in the languor of convalescence. 
Yet it is apparently composed with great elabo- 
rateness of dialogue, and incessant ambition 
of wit. The age of the writer considered, it 
is indeed a very wonderful performance; 
for, whenever written, it was acted (1693) 
when he was not more than twenty-one years 
old; and was then recommended by Mr. 
Dryden, Mr. Southern, and Mr. Maynwaring. 
Dryden said that he never had seen such a first 
play; but they found it deficient in some things 
requisite to the success of its exhibition, and by 
their greater experience fitted it for the stage. 
Southern used to relate of one comedy, prob- 
ably of this, that, when Congreve read it to 
the players, he pronounced it so wretchedly, that 
they had almost rejected it; but they were 
afterwards so well persuaded of its excellence, 
that, for half a year before it was acted, the 
manager allowed its author the privilege of the 
house. 

Few plays have ever been so beneficial to 
the writer; for it procured him the patronage 
of Halifax, who immediately made him one of 
the commissioners for licensing coaches, and 
soon after gave him a place in the pipe-office, 
and another in the customs of six hundred 
pounds a year. Congreve's conversation must 
surely have been at least equally pleasing with 
his writings. 

Such a comedy, written at such an age, re- 
quires some consideration. As the lighter 
species of dramatic poetry professes the imi- 
tation of common life, of real manners, and 
daily incidents, it apparently presupposes a 
familiar knowledge of many characters, and 
exact observation of the passing world; the 
difficulty therefore is, to conceive how this 
knowledge can be obtained by a boy. 

But if "The Old Bachelor" be more nearly 
examined, it will be found to be one of those 
comedies which may be made by a mind vigor- 
ous and acute, and furnished with comic char- 
acters by the perusal of other poets, without 
much actual commerce with mankind. The 
dialogue is one constant reciprocation of con- 
ceits, or clash of wit, in which nothing flows 
necessarily from the occasion or is dictated by 
nature. The characters both of men and wo- 
men are either fictitious and artificial, as those 
of Hcartwell and the Ladies; or easy and 



common, as Wittol a tame idiot, Bluff a swag- 
gering coward, and Fondlewife a jealous puri- 
tan ; and the catastrophe arises from a mistake 
not very probably produced, by marrying a 
woman in a mask. 

Yet this gay comedy, when all these deduc- 
tions are made, will still remain the work of 
very powerful and fertile faculties; the dia- 
logue is quick and sparkling, the incidents such 
as seize the attention, and the wit so exuberant 
that it "o'er-informs its tenement." 

Next year he gave another specimen of his 
abilities in "The Double Dealer," which was 
not received with equal kindness. He writes 
to his patron the lord Halifax a dedication, in 
which he endeavours to reconcile the reader 
to that which found few friends among the 
audience. These apologies are always useless: 
"de gustibus non est disputandum;" men may 
be convinced, but they cannot be pleased, 
against their will. But, though taste is ob- 
stinate, it is very variable: and time often pre- 
vails when arguments have failed. 

Queen Mary conferred upon both those 
plays the honour of her presence; and when 
she died soon after, Congreve testified his 
gratitude by a despicable effusion of elegiac 
pastoral ; a composition in which all is unnat- 
ural, and yet nothing is new. 

In another year (1695) his prolific pen pro- 
duced "Love for Love;" a comedy of nearer 
alliance to life, and exhibiting more real 
manners than either of the former. The char- 
acter of Foresight was then common. Dryden 
calculated nativities; both Cromwell and King 
William had their lucky days; and Shaftesbury 
himself, though he had no religion, was said 
to regard predictions. The Sailor is not ac- 
counted very natural, but he is very pleasant. 

With this play was opened the New Theatre, 
under the direction of Betterton the tragedian ; 
where he exhibited two years afterwards (1687) 
"The Mourning Bride," a tragedy, so written 
as to show him sufficiently qualified for either 
kind of dramatic poetry. 

In this play, of which, when he afterwards 
revised it, he reduced the versification to greater 
regularity, there is more bustle than sentiment ; 
the plot is busy and intricate, and the events 
take hold on the attention ; but, except a very 
few passages, we are rather amused with noise, 
and perplexed with stratagem, than enter- 
tained with any true delineation of natural 
characters. This, however, was received with 
more benevolence than any other of his works, 
and still continues to be acted and applauded. 



236 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 



But whatever objections may be made either 
to his comic or tragic excellence, they are lost 
at once in the blaze of admiration, when it is re- 
membered that he had produced these four plays 
before he had passed his twenty-fifth year, 
before other men, even such as are sometime 
to shine in eminence, have passed their proba- 
tion of literature, or presume to hope for any 
other notice than such as is bestowed on dili- 
gence and inquiry. Among all the efforts of 
early genius which literary history records, I 
doubt whether any one can be produced that 
more surpasses the common limits of nature 
than the plays of Congreve. 

About this time began the long-continued 
controversy between Collier and the poets. 
In the reign of Charles the First the Puritans 
had raised a violent clamour against the drama, 
which they considered as an entertainment 
not lawful to Christians, an opinion held by 
them in common with the church of Rome; 
and Prynne published "Histriomastix," a huge 
volume, in which stage-plays were censured. 
The outrages and crimes of the Puritans 
brought afterwards their whole system of doc- 
trine into disrepute, and from the Restoration 
the poets and players were left at quiet; for 
to have molested them would have had the 
appearance of tendency to puritanical malig- 
nity. 

This danger, however, was worn away by 
time; and Collier, a fierce and implacable 
Nonjuror, knew that an attack upon the theatre 
would never make him suspected for a Puritan ; 
he therefore (1698) published "A short View 
of the Immorality and Profaneness of the 
English Stage," I believe with no other motive 
than religious zeal and honest indignation. He 
was formed for a controvertist; with sufficient 
learning; with diction vehement and pointed, 
though often vulgar and incorrect ; with uncon- 
querable pertinacity; with wit in the highest 
degree keen and sarcastic; and with all those 
powers, exalted and invigorated by just con- 
fidence in his cause. 

Thus qualified, and thus incited, he walked 
out to battle, and assailed at once most of the 
living writers, from Dryden to D'Urfey. His 
onset was violent; those passages, which, 
while they stood single had passed with little 
notice, when they were accumulated and ex- 
posed together, excited horror; the wise and 
the pious caught the alarm; and the nation 
wondered why it had so long suffered irreligion 
and licentiousness to be openly taught at the 
public charge. 



Nothing now remained for the poets but 
to resist or fly. Dryden's conscience, or his 
prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from 
the conflict : Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted 
answers. Congreve, a very young man, elated 
with success, and impatient of censure, as- 
sumed an air of confidence and security. His 
chief artifice of controversy is to retort upon his 
adversary his own words; he is very angry, 
and, hoping to conquer Collier with his own 
weapons, allows himself in the use of every 
term of contumely and contempt; but he has 
the sword without the arm of Scanderbeg; he 
has his antagonist's coarseness, but not his 
strength. Collier replied; for contest was his 
delight, he was not to be frighted from his pur- 
pose or his prey. 

The cause of Congreve was not tenable; 
whatever glosses he might use for the defence 
or palliation of single passages, the general 
tenor and tendency of his plays must always 
be condemned. It is acknowledged, with uni- 
versal conviction, that the perusal of his works 
will make no man better; and that their ulti- 
mate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance 
with vice, and to relax those obligations by 
which life ought to be regulated. 

The stage found other advocates, and the 
dispute was protracted through ten years: but 
at last Comedy grew more modest; and 
Collier lived to see the reward of his labour 
in the reformation of the theatre. 

Of Ihe powers by which this important vic- 
tory was achieved, a quotation from "Love 
for Love," and the remark upon it, may afford 
a specimen: 

"Sir Samps. Sampson's a very good name; 
for your Sampsons were strong dogs from the 
beginning. 

"Angel. Have a care — If you remember, 
the strongest Sampson of your name pull'd 
an old house over his head at last." 

Here you have the Sacred History bur- 
lesqued; and Sampson once more brought 
into the house of Dagon, to make sport for 
the Philistines. 

Congreve's last play was "The Way of the 
World;" which, though as he hints in his 
dedication it was written with great labour 
and much thought, was received with so little 
favour, that, being in a high degree offended 
and disgusted, he resolved to commit his quiet 
ami his fame no more to the caprices of an 
audience. 

From this time his life ceased to the public; 
he lived for himself and for his friends; and 






CONGREVE 



237 



among his friends was able to name every 
man of his time whom wit and elegance had 
raised to reputation. It may be therefore 
reasonably supposed that his manners were 
polite, and his conversation pleasing. 

He seems not to have taken much pleasure 
in writing, as he contributed nothing to the 
Spectator, and only one paper to the Tatler, 
though published by men with whom he might 
be supposed willing to associate; and though 
he lived many years after the publication of 
his "Miscellaneous Poems," yet he added 
nothing to them, but lived on in literary indo- 
lence; engaged in no controversy, contending 
with no rival, neither soliciting flattery by 
public commendations, nor provoking enmity 
by malignant criticism, but passing his time 
among the great and splendid, in the placid 
enjoyment of his fame and fortune. 

Having owed his fortune to Halifax, he con- 
tinued always of his patron's party, but, as 
it seems, without violence or acrimony; and 
his firmness was naturally esteemed, as his 
abilities were reverenced. His security there- 
fore was never violated; and when, upon the 
extrusion of the Whigs, some intercession was 
used lest Congreve should be displaced, the 
earl of Oxford made this answer: 

" Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni, 
Nee tam aversus equos Tyria sol jungit ab urbe." ' 

He that was thus honoured by the adverse 
party might naturally expect to be advanced 
when his friends returned to power, and he 
was accordingly made secretary for the island 
of Jamaica; a place, I suppose, without trust 
or care, but which, with his post in the cus- 
toms, is said to have afforded him twelve hun- 
dred pounds a year. 

His honours were yet far greater than his 
profits. Every writer mentioned him with 
respect; and, among other testimonies to his 
merit, Steele made him the patron of his Mis- 
cellany, and Pope inscribed to him his trans- 
lation of the Iliad. 

But he treated the Muses with ingratitude; 
for, having long conversed familiarly with the 
great, he wished to be considered rather as a 
man of fashion than of wit; and, when he 
received a visit from Voltaire, disgusted him 
by the despicable foppery of desiring to be 
considered not as an author but a gentleman; 

1 We Carthaginians bear not such blunted souls 
nor does the sun averse from our city yoke his steeds. 



to which the Frenchman replied, "that, if he 
had been only a gentleman, he should not have 
come to visit him." 

In his retirement he may be supposed to 
have applied himself to books; for he discovers 
more literature than the poets have commonly 
attained. But his studies were in his latter 
days obstructed by cataracts in his eyes, which 
at last terminated in blindness. This melan- 
choly state was aggravated by the gout, for 
which he sought relief by a journey to Bath; 
but, being overturned in his chariot, com- 
plained from that time of a pain in his side, 
and died at his house in Surrey-street in 
the Strand, Jan. 29, 1728-9. Having lain 
in state in the Jerusalem-chamber, he was 
buried in Westminster-abbey, where a monu- 
ment is erected to his memory by Henrietta, 
duchess of Marlborough, to whom, for reasons 
either not known or not mentioned, he be- 
queathed a legacy of about ten thousand 
pounds; the accumulation of attentive parsi- 
mony, which though to her superfluous and 
useless, might have given great assistance to 
the ancient family from which he descended, 
at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, 
reduced to difficulties and distress. 

Congreve has merit of the highest kind; he 
is an original writer, who borrowed neither 
the models of his plot nor the manner of his 
dialogue. Of his plays I cannot speak dis- 
tinctly; for since I inspected them many years 
have passed; but what remains upon my 
memory is, that his characters are commonly 
fictitious and artificial, with very little of 
nature, and not much of life. He formed a 
peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he 
supposed to consist in gay remarks and un- 
expected answers; but that which he en- 
deavoured, he seldom failed of performing. 
His scenes exhibit not much of humour, 
imagery, or passion ; his personages are a kind 
of intellectual gladiators; every sentence is to 
ward or strike; the contest of smartness is 
never intermitted; his wit is a meteor play- 
ing to and fro with alternate coruscations. 
His comedies have therefore, in some degree, 
the operation of tragedies ; they surprise rather 
than divert, and raise admiration oftener than 
merriment. But they are the works of a mind 
replete with images, and quick in combination. 

Of his miscellaneous poetry I cannot say 
any thing very favourable. The powers of 
Congreve seem to desert him when he leaves 
the stage, as Antaeus was no longer strong 
than when he could touch the ground. It 



2 3 8 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 



cannot be observed without wonder, that a 
mind so vigorous and fertile in dramatic com- 
positions should on any other occasion dis- 
cover nothing but impotence and poverty. He 
has in these little pieces neither elevation of 
fancy, selection of language, nor skill in versi- 
fication ; yet, if I were required to select from 
the whole mass of English poetry the most 
poetical paragraph, I know not what I could 
prefer to an exclamation in "The Mourning 
Bride": 

Aim. It was a fancy'd noise; for all is hush'd. 

Leo. It bore the accent of a hum an voice. 

Aim. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind 
Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle: 
We'll listen — 

Leo. Hark! 

Aim. No, all is hush'd and still as death. — 'Tis 
dreadful ! 
I low reverend is the face of this tall pile, 
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, 
To hear aloft its areh'd and ponderous roof, 
By its own weight made Steadfast and immoveable, 
Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe 
And terror on my aching sight; tin- tombs 
Ami monumental eaves of death look cold, 
And shoot a dullness to my trembling heart. 
Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice; 
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear 
Thy voice — my own affrights me with its echoes. 



He who reads these lines enjoys for a moment 
the powers of a poet; he feels what he remem- 
bers to have felt before; but he feels it with 
great increase of sensibility; he recognizes a 
familiar image, but meets it again amplified 
and expanded, embellished with beauty, and 
enlarged with majesty. 

Yet could the author, who appears here to 
haw enjoyed the confidence of Nature, lament 
the death of queen Mary in lines like these: 

The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills 

Furrow the brows of all the impending hills. 

The water-gods to Hoods their rivulets turn, 

And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting 

urn. 
The Fauns forsake the woods, the Nymphs the grove, 
And round the plain in sad distractions rove: 
In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear, 
And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair. 
With their sharp nails, themselves the Satyrs wound, 
And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the 

ground. 
Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak, 
Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke. 
See Pales weeping too, in wild despair, 
And to the piercing winds her bosom bare. 



And see yon fading myrtle, where appears 

The Queen of Love, all bath'd in flowing tears; 

See how she wrings her hands, and beats her breast, 

And tears her useless girdle from her waist! 

Hear the sad murmurs of her sighing doves! 

For grief they sigh, forgetful of their loves. 

And, many years after, he gave no proof that 
time had improved his wisdom or his wit; for, 
on the death of the marquis of Blandford, this 
was his song: 

And now the winds, which had so long been still, 

Began the swilling air with sighs to fill ! 

The water nymphs, who motionless remain'd, 

Like images of ice, while she complain'd, 

Now loos'd their streams; as when descending rains 

Roll the steep torrents headlong o'er the plains. 

The prone creation, who so long had gaz'd, 

Charm'd with her cries, and at her griefs amaz'd, 

began to roar and howl with horrid yell, 

Dismal to hear, and terrible to tell! 

Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around, 

And Echo multiplied each mournful sound. 

In both these funeral poems, when he has 
yelled out many syllables of senseless dolour, 
he dismisses his reader with senseless conso- 
lation : from the grave of Pastora rises a light 
that forms a star; and where Amaryllis wept 
for Amyntas, from every tear sprung up a 
violet. 

But William is his hero, and of William he 
will sing: 

The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait around, 
And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the Hying sound. 

It cannot but be proper to show what they 
shall have to catch and carry: 

'Twas now when flowery lawns the prospect made, 

And flowing brooks beneath a forest shade, 

A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd, 

Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar'd 

Their armed heads for tight, by fate of war to prove 

The victor worthy of the fair-one's love; 

Unthought presage of what met next my view; 

For soon the shady scene withdrew. 

And now, for woods and fields, and springing flowers, 

Behold a town arise, bulvvark'd with walls and 

lofty towers; 
Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread, 
bach in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd; 
With eager eyes beholding both from far 
Namur, the prize and mistress of the war. 

The "Birth of the Muse" is a miserable 
fiction. One good line it has, which was 






ESSAYS FROM THE RAMBLER 



239 



borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verses 
are these: 

This said, no more remain' d. Th' ethcrial host 
Again impatient crowd the crystal coast. 
The father, now, within his spacious hands; 
Encompass'd all the mingled mass of seas and 

lands; 
And, having hcav'd aloft the ponderous sphere, 
He launch'd the world to float in ambient air. 

Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Ara- 
bella Hunt seems to be the best: his ode for 
St. Cecilia's Day, however, has some lines 
which Pope had in his mind when he wrote 
his own. 

His imitations of Horace are feebly para- 
phrastical, and the additions which he makes 
are of little value. He sometimes retains 
what were more properly omitted, as when he 
talks of vervain and gums to propitiate Venus. 

Of his translations, the satire of Juvenal 
was written very early, and may therefore be 
forgiven though it have not the massiness and 
vigour of the original. In all his versions 
strength and sprightliness are wanting: his 
Hymn to Venus, from Homer, is perhaps the 
best. His lines are weakened with expletives, 
and his rhymes are frequently imperfect. 

His petty poems are seldom worth the cost 
of criticism ; sometimes the thoughts are false, 
and sometimes common. In his verses on 
Lady Gethin, the latter part is in imitation of 
Dryden's ode on Mrs. Killigrew; and Doris, 
that has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, 
has indeed some lively stanzas, but the ex- 
pression might be mended; and the most 
striking part of the character had been already 
shown in "Love for Love." His "Art of 
Pleasing" is founded on a vulgar, but perhaps 
impracticable principle, and the staleness of 
the sense is not concealed by any novelty of 
illustration or elegance of diction. 

This tissue of poetry, from which he seems 
to have hoped a lasting name, is totally neg- 
lected, and known only as appended to his 
plays. 

While comedy or while tragedy is regarded, 
his plays are likely to be read; but, except 
what relates to the stage, I know not that he 
has ever written a stanza that is sung, or a 
couplet that is quoted. The general character 
of his "Miscellanies" is, that they show little 
wit, and little virtue. 

Yet to him it must be confessed, that we 
are indebted for the correction of a national 
error, and for the cure of our Pindaric mad- 



ness. He first taught the English writers that 
Pindar's odes were regular; and though cer- 
tainly he had not the fire requisite for the 
higher species of lyric poetry, he has shown 
us, that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in 
mere confusion there is neither grace nor 
greatness. 

ESSAYS FROM THE RAMBLER 

NO. 68. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1750 

Vivendum rede, cum propter plurima, tunc his 
Praecipue causis, ut Ungues mancipiorum 
Contemnas ; nam lingua mali pars pessima servi. 

— Juv. 

Let us live well: were it alone for this 

The baneful tongue of servants to despise: 

Slander, that worst of poisons, ever finds 

An easy entrance to ignoble minds. — Hervey. 

The younger Pliny has very justly observed, 
that of actions that deserve our attention, the 
most splendid are not always the greatest. 
Fame, and wonder, and applause, are not 
excited but by external and adventitious cir- 
cumstances, often distinct and separate from 
virtue and heroism. Eminence of station, 
greatness of effect, and all the favours of for- 
tune, must concur to place excellence in public 
view; but fortitude, diligence, and patience, 
divested of their show, glide unobserved through 
the crowd of life, and suffer and act, though 
with the same vigour and constancy, yet with- 
out pity and without praise. 

This remark may be extended to all parts of 
life. Nothing is to be estimated by its effect 
upon common eyes and common ears. A 
thousand miseries make silent and invisible 
inroads on mankind, and the heart feels in- 
numerable throbs which never break into com- 
plaint. Perhaps, likewise, our pleasures are 
for the most part equally secret, and most are 
borne up by some private satisfaction, some 
internal consciousness, some latent hope, some 
peculiar prospect, which they never communi- 
cate, but reserve for solitary hours, and clandes- 
tine meditation. 

The main of life is, indeed, composed of 
small incidents and petty occurrences; of 
wishes for objects not remote, and grief for 
disappointments of no fatal consequence; of 
insect vexations which sting us and fly away, 
impertinences which buzz awhile about us, 
and are heard no more; of meteorous pleas- 
ures which dance before us and are dissipated; 
of compliments which glide off the soul like 



240 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 



other music, and are forgotten by him that 
gave and him that received them. 

Such is the general heap out of which every 
man is to cull his own condition; for, as the 
chemists tell us, that all bodies are resolvable 
into the same elements, and that the bound- 
less variety of things arises from the different 
proportions of very few ingredients; so a few 
pains and a few pleasures are all the materials 
of human life, and of these the proportions are 
partly allotted by Providence, and partly left 
to the arrangement of reason and of choice. 

As these are well or ill disposed, man is for 
the most part happy or miserable. For very 
few are involved in great events, or have their 
thread of life entwisted with the chain of 
causes on which armies or nations are sus- 
pended; and even those who seem wholly 
busied in public affairs, and elevated above 
low cares, or trivial pleasures, pass the chief 
part of their time in familiar and domestic 
scenes; from these they came into public life, 
to these they are every hour recalled by pas- 
sions not to be suppressed; in these they have 
the reward of their toils, and to these at last 
they retire. 

The great end of prudence is to give cheer- 
fulness to those hours, which splendour can- 
not gild and acclamation cannot exhilarate; 
those soft intervals of unbended amusement, 
in which a man shrinks to his natural dimen- 
sions, and throws aside the ornaments or dis- 
guises, which he feels in privacy to be useless 
encumbrances, and so lose all effect when they 
become familiar. To be happy at home is 
the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to 
which every enterprise and labour tends, and 
of which every desire prompts the prosecution. 

It is, indeed, at home that every man must 
be known by those who would make a just 
estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for 
smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, 
and the mind is often dressed for show in 
painted honour and fictitious benevolence. 

Every man must have found some whose 
lives, in every house but their own, was a 
continual series of hypocrisy, and who con- 
cealed under fair appearances bad qualities, 
which, whenever they thought themselves out 
of the reach of censure, broke out from their 
restraint, like winds imprisoned in their caverns, 
and whom every one had reason to love, but 
they whose love a wise man is chiefly solicitous 
to procure. And there are others who, with- 
out any show of general goodness, and without 
the attractions by which popularity is con- 



ciliated, are received among their own families 
as bestowers of happiness, and reverenced as 
instructors, guardians, and benefactors. 

The most authentic witnesses of any man's 
character are those who know him in his own 
family, and see him without any restraint or 
rule of conduct, but such as he voluntarily 
prescribes to himself. If a man carries virtue 
with him into his private apartments, and takes 
no advantage of unlimited power or probable 
secrecy; if we trace him through the round of 
his time, and find that his character, with 
those allowances which mortal frailty must 
always want, is uniform and regular, we have 
all the evidence of his sincerity, that one man 
can have with regard to another: and, indeed, 
as hypocrisy cannot be its own reward, we 
may, without hesitation, determine that his 
heart is pure. 

The highest panegyric, therefore, that 
private virtue can receive, is the praise of 
servants. For, however vanity or insolence 
may look down with contempt on the suffrage 
of men undignified by wealth, and unen- 
lightened by education, it very seldom happens 
that they commend or blame without justice. 
Vice and virtue are easily distinguished. Op- 
pression, according to Harrington's aphorism, 
will be felt by those that cannot see it; and, 
perhaps, it falls out very often that, in moral 
questions, the philosophers in the gown, and 
in the livery, differ not so much in their senti- 
ments, as in their language, and have equal 
power of discerning right, though they can- 
not point it out to others with equal address. 

There are very few faults to be committed 
in solitude, or without some agents, partners, 
confederates, or witnesses; and, therefore, the 
servant must commonly know the secrets of a 
master, who has any secrets to entrust; and 
failings, merely personal, are so frequently ex- 
posed by that security which pride and folly 
generally produce, and so inquisitively watched 
by that desire of reducing the inequalities of 
condition, which the lower orders of the world 
will always feel, that the testimony of a menial 
domestic can seldom be considered as defective 
for want of knowledge. And though its im- 
partiality may be sometimes suspected, it is at 
least as credible as that of equals, where rivalry 
instigates censure, or friendship dictates pallia- 
tions. 

The danger of betraying our weaknesses to 
our servants, and the impossibility of conceal- 
ing it from them, may be justly considered as 
one motive to a regular and irreproachable 



ESSAYS FROM THE RAMBLER 



241 



life. For no condition is more hateful or 
despicable, than his who has put himself in 
the power of his servant; in the power of him 
whom, perhaps, he has first corrupted by mak- 
ing him subservient to his vices, and whose 
fidelity he therefore cannot enforce by any 
precepts of honesty or reason. It is seldom 
known that authority thus acquired, is pos- 
sessed without insolence, or that the master is 
not forced to confess by his tameness or for- 
bearance, that he has enslaved himself by 
some foolish confidence. And his crime is 
equally punished, whatever part he takes of 
the choice to which he is reduced; and he is 
from that fatal hour, in which he sacrificed 
his dignity to his passions, in perpetual dread 
of insolence or defamation; of a controller at 
home, or an accuser abroad. He is condemned 
to purchase, by continual bribes, that secrecy 
which bribes never secured, and which, after a 
long course of submission, promises, and anxi- 
eties, he will find violated in a fit of rage, 
or in a frolic of drunkenness. 

To dread no eye, and to suspect no tongue, 
is the great prerogative of innocence; an 
exemption granted only to invariable virtue. 
But, guilt has always its horrors and solici- 
tudes; and to make it yet more shameful and 
detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe 
of those, to whom nothing could give influence 
or weight, but their power of betraying. 

NO. 69. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1750 

Flet quoque, ut in speculo rugas adspcxit anilcs, 
Tyndaris ; ct secum, cur sit bis rapta, requirit. 
Tern pus edax rerum, tuque invidiosa vetustas 
Omnia destruitis; vitiataque dentibus aevi 
Paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte. — Ovid. 

The dreadful wrinkles when poor Helen spy'd, 
Ah! why this second rape? — with tears she cry'd. 
Time, thou devourer, and thou envious age, 
Who all destroy with keen corroding rage, 
Beneath your jaws, whate'er have pleas'd or please, 
Must sink, consum'd by swift or slow degrees. 

— Elphinston. 

An old Greek epigrammatist, intending to 
show the miseries that attend the last stage 
of man, imprecates upon those who are so 
foolish as to wish for long life, the calamity 
of continuing to grow old from century to 
century. He thought that no adventitious or 
foreign pain was requisite; that decrepitude 
itself was an epitome of whatever is dreadful; 
and nothing could be added to the curse of 



age, but that it should be extended beyond its 
natural limits. 

The most indifferent or negligent spectator 
can indeed scarcely retire without heaviness of 
heart, from a view of the last scenes of the trag- 
edy of life, in which he finds those, who in the 
former parts of the drama, were distinguished 
by opposition of conduct, contrariety of de- 
signs, and dissimilitude of personal qualities, 
all involved in one common distress, and all 
struggling with affliction which they cannot 
hope to overcome. 

The other miseries, which waylay our pass- 
age through the world, wisdom may escape, 
and fortitude may conquer: by caution and 
circumspection we may steal along with very 
little to obstruct or incommode us; by spirit 
and vigour we may force a way, and reward 
the vexation of contest by the pleasures of 
victory. But a time must come when our 
policy and bravery shall be equally useless; 
when we shall all sink into helplessness and 
sadness, without any power of receiving solace 
from the pleasures that have formerly delighted 
us, or any prospect of emerging into a second 
possession of the blessings that we have lost. 

The industry of man has, indeed, not been 
wanting in endeavours to procure comforts for 
these hours of dejection and melancholy, and 
to gild the dreadful gloom with artificial light. 
The most usual support of old age is wealth. 
He whose possessions are large, and whose 
chests are full, imagines himself always forti- 
fied against invasions on his authority. If he 
has lost all other means of government, if his 
strength and his reason fail him, he can at 
last alter his will; and therefore all that have 
hopes must likewise have fears, and he may 
still continue to give laws to such as have not 
ceased to regard their own interest. 

This is, indeed, too frequently the citadel of 
the dotard, the last fortress to which age re- 
tires, and in which he makes the stand against 
the upstart race that seizes his domains, dis- 
putes his commands, and cancels his prescrip- 
tions. But here, though there may be safety, 
there is no pleasure; and what remains is but 
a proof that more was once possessed. 

Nothing seems to have been more univer- 
sally dreaded by the ancients than orbity, or 
want of children; and, indeed, to a man who 
has survived all the companions of his youth, 
all who have participated his pleasures and 
his cares, have been engaged in the same 
events, and filled their minds with the same 
conceptions, this full-peopled world is a dismal 



- A I-' 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 



solitude. He stands forlorn and silent, neg- 
lected or insulted, in the midst of multitudes, 
animated with hopes which he cannol share, 
and employed in business which he is no 
longer able to forward or retard; nor can he 
find any to whom his life or his death are of 
importance, unless he has secured some do- 
mestic gratifications, some tender employ- 
ments, and endeared himself to some whoso 
interest and gratitude may unite them to 
him. 

So differenl arc the colours of life as we 
look forward to the future, or backward to the 
past; and so differenl the opinions and senti- 
ments which this contrariety of appearance 
naturally produces, that the conversation oi 
the old ami young ends generally with con 
tempt or pity on either side. To a young man 
entering the world with fulness of hope, and 
ardour of pursuit, nothing is so unpleasing as 
the cold caution, the faint expectations, the 
scrupulous diffidence, which experience and 
disappointments certainly infuse; and the old 
wonders in his turn that the world never can 
grow wiser, that neither precepts, nor testi- 
monies can cure hoys of their credulity and 
sufficiency; and that no one can he convinced 
that snares are laid for him. till he finds him- 
self entangled. 

Thus one generation is always the scorn and 
wonder of the other, and the notions of the old 
and young are like liquors of different gravity 
and texture which never can unite. The 
Spirits of youth sublimed by health, and 
volatilised by passion, soon leave behind them 
the phlegmatic sediment of weariness and 
deliberation, and hurst out in temerity and 
enterprise. The tenderness therefore which 
nature infuses, and which long habits of be- 
neficence confirm. i> necessary to reconcile such 
opposition; ami an old man must he a father 
to hear with patience those follies and absurdi- 
ties which he will perpetually imagine himself 
to find in the schemes and expectations, the 
pleasures and the sorrows, of those who have 
not yet been hardened by time, and chilled by 
frustration. 

Vet it may be doubted, whether the pleasure 
of seeing children ripening into strength, be 
not overbalanced by the pain of seeing some 
fall in their blossom, and others blasted in 
their growth; some shaken down with storms, 
some tainted with cankers, and some shrivelled 
in the shade; and whether he that extends his 
care beyond himself, does not multiply his 
anxieties more than his pleasures, and weary 



himself to no purpose, hv superintending what 
he cannot regulate 

But, though age he to every order of human 
beings sufficiently terrible, it is particularly to 
be dreaded by fine ladies, who have had no 
other end or ambition than to till up the day 
and the night with dress, diversions, and 
Battery, and who, having made no acquaint- 
ance with knowledge, or with business, have 
constantly caught all their ideas from the 
current prattle of the hour, and been indebted 
for all their happiness to compliments and 
treats. With these ladies, age begins early, 
and very often lasts long; it begins when their 
beauty fades, when their mirth loses its spright- 
liness, and their motion its ease. From that 
time all which gave them joy vanishes from 
about them; they hear the praises bestowed 
on others, which used to swell their bosoms 
with exultation. They visit the seats of 
felicity, and endeavour to continue the habit 
of being delighted. Hut pleasure is only re- 
ceived when we believe that we give it in 
return. Neglect and petulance inform them 
that their power and their value are past; 
and what then remains but a tedious and 
comfortless uniformity of time, without any 
motion o\ the heart, or exercise of the reason? 

Yet, however age may discourage us by its 
appearance from considering it in prospect, 
we shall all by degrees certainly be old; and 
therefore we ought to inquire what provision 
can he made against that time of distress? 
what happiness can he stored up against the 
winter of life: and how we may pass our 
latter years with serenity and cheerfulness? 

It" it has been found by the experience of 
mankind, that not even the best seasons of 
life are able to supply sufficient gratifications, 
without anticipating uncertain felicities, it 
cannot surely be supposed that old age, worn 
with labours, harassed with anxieties, and 
tortured with diseases, should have any glad- 
ness of its own. or feel any satisfaction from 
the contemplation of the present. All the 
comfort that can now he expected must he 
recalled from the past, or borrowed from the 
future; the past is very soon exhausted, all 
the events or actions of which the memory 
can afford pleasure are quickly recollected; 
and the future lies beyond the grave, where it 
can he reached only by virtue and devotion. 

Piety is the only proper and adequate relief 
of decaying man. He that grows old without 
religious hopes, as he declines into imbecility, 
and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowd- 



liWW) HUME 



243 



ing upon hirn, falls into a gulf of bottomless 
misery, in which every reflection must plunge 
him deeper, and where be finds only new 
gradations of anguish, and pre< ipices of liorror. 



DAVID HUME (1711 1776) 

a:: [NQUIRY CON< ERN1 '- 'I HE PRIN 
CIPLES ( >\ MOR M. 

SECT. V. -WHY UTILITY PLEASES 

I'm n 

Self love is a principle in human nature of 
such extensive energy, and the interest of each 

individual is, in general, 50 closely con 
with that of the community, that those pi 
phers were excusable, who fancied, that all 
our concern for the public might be resolved 
into a concern for our own happiness and 
preservation. They saw every moment, in- 
stances of approbation or blame, satisfaction 
or displeasure towards characters and actions; 
they denominated the objects of these senti- 
ments, virtues, or vices; they observed, that 
the former had a tendency to increase the 
happiness, and the latter the- misery of man- 
kind; they asked, whether it were possible 
that we could have any general concern for 
Society, or any disinterested resentment of the 
welfare or injury of others; they found it 
simpler to consider all these sentiments as 
modifications of self love; and they discovered 
a pretence, at least, for this unity of principle, 
in that close union of interest, which 
observable between the public and each 
individual. 

But notwithstanding this frequent confusion 
of interests, it is easy to attain what natural 
philosophers, after Lord Bacon, have at 1 
to call the experimentum cruris, or that ex- 
periment which points out the right way in 
any doubt or ambiguity. We have found in- 
stances, in which private interest was separate 
from public; in which it was even contrary: 
And yet we observed the moral sentiment to 
continue, notwithstanding this disjunction of 
interests. And wherever these distinct, in- 
sensibly concurred, we always found a 
sensible increase of the- sentiment, and a more 
warm affection to virtue, and detestation of 
vice, or what we properly 'all, gratitude and 
revenge. Compelled by these instances, we 
must renounce the theory which account-, for 
every moral sentiment by the principle of self- 



Wc must adopt a more public af ; < 
and allow, that the intere 

on their own account, entirely indi. 
1 tefuhn 1 is only a tendem 
tain end; and it is a contradiction in terms, 
that anything plea end, 

'.'.here the end itself no wise affects \ 

useful refore, b< of moral 

sentiment, and if this usefulne 

dered with a reference to self; it follows, 
that everything, which contributes to the I ap- 

■ If directly 
to our approbation and go 
principle, which accounts, in great part, for 
the origin of morality: And what need we 
seek for abstruse and remoti when 

there OO and natural? 

Have we any difficulty to comprehend the 
of humanity and benevolence? Or to 

ive, that the in ct of bapp 

joy, prosperity, gives pleasure; that of pain, 

communicati 
'J lie human countenance, says Horace. 1/, 
smiles or tears from the human countenance. 

ce ■■' person to solitude, and he lo ■ 
enjoyment, except either of the sensual or 
speculative kind; and that because the 
merit-, of his heart are not. forwarded b; 

indent movements in his fellow-creatures. 
'I he- sign- of sorrow and mourning, though 
arbitrary, affect us with melancholy; but the 
natural symptoms, tears a nd groans, 

fail to infuse compassion and unea 
And if the effects of misery touch us in so lively 
a manner; can we be supposed altogether in- 
sensible or indifferent towards its causes; when 
a malicious or treacherous character and be- 
haviour are presented to 

We enter, I shall suppose, into a convenient, 
warm, well-contrived apartment: We neces- 
sarily receive a pleasure from its very survey; 
becau ats us with the pies 

of ease, satisfaction, and enjoyment. The 
hospitable, good-humoured, humane landlord 
appears. This circumstance surely must em- 
bellish the whole; nor can we easily forbear 
reflecting, with pleasure, on the satisfaction 
which results to every one from his intercourse 
and good o 

His whole family, by the freedom, ease, con- 

e, and cairn enjoyment, diffused over 
their countenances, sufficient);. their 

happiness, i have a pleasing sympathy in 
the prospect of so much joy, and can never con- 
sider the source of it, without the most agree- 
able emotions. 



244 



DAVID HUME 



He tells me, thai an oppressive and powerful 
neighbour had attempted to dispossess him oi 

his inheritance, and had long disturbed all his 
innocent and social pleasures. I feel an im- 
mediate indignation arise in me against such 
violence and injury. 

But it is no wonder, he adds, that a private 
wrong should proceed from a man, who had 
enslaved provinces, depopulated cities, and 
made the field and scaffold stream with human 
blood. I am struck with horror at the prospect 
of so much misery, and am actuated by the 
strongest antipathy against its author. 

In general, it is certain, that, wherever we 
go, whatever we reflect on or converse about, 
everything still presents us with the view of 
human happiness or misery, and excites in our 
breast a sympathetic movement of pleasure 
or uneasiness. In our serious occupations, 
in our careless amusements, this principle 
still exerts its active energy. 

A man, who enters the theatre, is immediately 
struck with the view of so great a multitude, 
participating of one common amusement; and 
experiences, from their very aspect, a supe- 
rior sensibility or disposition of being affected 
with every sentiment, which he shares with 
his fellow-creatures. 

He observes the actors to be animated by the 
appearance of a full audience, and raised to a 
degree of enthusiasm, which they cannot com- 
mand in any solitary or calm moment. 

Every movement of the theatre, by a skilful 
poet, is communicated, as it were by magic, 
to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, 
rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety 
of passions, which actuate the several person- 
ages of the drama. 

Where any event crosses our wishes, and 
interrupts the happiness of the favourite char- 
acters, we feel a sensible anxiety and concern. 
But where their sufferings proceed from the 
treachery, cruelty, or tyranny of an enemy, our 
breasts are affected with the liveliest resent- 
ment against the author of these calamities. 

It is here esteemed contrary to the rules of 
art to represent anything cool and indifferent. 
A distant friend, or a confidant who has no 
immediate interest in the catastrophe, ought, 
if possible, to be avoided by the poet; as com- 
municating a like indifference to the audience, 
and checking the progress of the passions. 

Few species of poetry are more entertaining 
than pastoral; and every one is sensible, that 
the chief source of its pleasure arises from 
those images of a gentle and tender tran- 



quillity, which it represents in its personages, 
and of which it communicates a like sentiment 
to the reader. Sannazarius, who transferred 
the scene to the seashore, though he presented 
the most magnificent object in nature, is con- 
fessed to have erred in his choice. The idea of 
toil, labour, and danger, suffered by the fisher- 
men, is painful; by an unavoidable sympathy, 
which attends every conception of human 
happiness or misery. 

When I was twenty, savs a French poet, 
Ovid was my favourite: Now I am forty, I 
declare for Horace. We enter, to be sure, 
more readilv into sentiments, which resemble 
those we feel every day: But no passion, when 
well represented, can be entirely indifferent to 
us; because there is none, of which every man 
has not, within him, at least the seeds and 
first principles. It is the business of poetry 
to bring every affection near to us by lively 
imagery and representation, and make it look 
like truth and reality: A certain proof, that, 
wherever reality is found, our minds are 
disposed to be strongly affected by it. 

Any recent event or piece of news, by which 
the fate of states, provinces, or many individ- 
uals is affected, is extremely interesting even 
to those whose welfare is not immediately 
engaged. Such intelligence is propagated with 
celerity, heard with avidity, and inquired into 
with attention and concern. The interest of 
society appears, on this occasion, to be, in some 
degree, the interest of each individual. The 
imagination is sure to be affected; though the 
passions excited may not always be so strong 
and steady as to have great influence on the 
conduct and behaviour. 

The perusal of a history seems a calm en- 
tertainment; but would be no entertainment 
at all, did not our hearts beat with correspond- 
ent movements to those which are described 
by the historian. 

Thucydides and Guicciardin support with 
difficulty our attention; while the former 
describes the trivial rencounters of the small 
cities of Greece, and the latter the harmless 
wars of Pisa. The few persons interested, and 
the small interest fill not the imagination, and 
engage not the affections. The deep distress 
of the numerous Athenian army before Syra- 
cuse; the danger, which so nearly threatens 
Venice; these excite compassion; these move 
terror and anxiety. 

The indifferent, uninteresting style of Sue- 
tonius, equally with the masterly pencil of 
Tacitus, may convince us of the cruel de- 



AX INQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS 245 



pravity of Nero or Tiberius: But what a differ- 
ence of sentiment! While the former coldly 
relates the facts; and the latter sets before 
our eyes the venerable figures of a Soranus and 
a Thrasea, intrepid in their fate, and only 
moved by the melting sorrows of their friends 
and kindred. What sympathy then touches 
every human heart ! What indignation against 
the tyrant, whose causeless fear or unprovoked 
malice gave rise to such detestable barbarity! 

If we bring these subjects nearer: If we 
remove all suspicion of fiction and deceit: 
What powerful concern is excited, and how 
much superior, in many instances, to the nar- 
row attachments of self-love and private inter- 
est ! Popular sedition, party zeal, a devoted 
obedience to factious leaders; these are some 
of the most visible, though less laudable effects 
of this social sympathy in human nature. 

The frivolousness of the subject too, we may 
observe, is not able to detach us entirely from 
what carries an image of human sentiment and 
affection. 

When a person stutters, and pronounces with 
difficulty, we even sympathise with this trivial 
uneasiness, and suffer for him. And it is a 
rule in criticism, that every combination of 
syllables or letters, which gives pain to the 
organs of speech in the recital, appears also, 
from a species of sympathy, harsh and disa- 
greeable to the ear. Nay, when we run over 
a book with our eye, we are sensible of such 
unharmonious composition; because we still 
imagine, that a person recites it to us, and 
suffers from the pronunciation of these jarring 
sounds. So delicate is our sympathy ! 

Easy and unconstrained postures and motions 
are always beautiful: An air of health and vig- 
our is agreeable: Clothes which warm, without 
burdening the body; which cover, without 
imprisoning the limbs, are well-fashioned. 
In every judgment of beauty, the feelings of the 
person affected enter into consideration, and 
communicate to the spectator similar touches 
of pain or pleasure. What wonder, then, if 
we can pronounce no judgment concerning the 
character and conduct of men, without con- 
sidering the tendencies of their actions, and the 
happiness or misery which thence arises to 
society? What association of ideas would 
ever operate, were that principle here totally 
unactive ? 

If any man from a cold insensibility, or nar- 
row selfishness of temper, is unaffected with the 
images of human happiness or misery, he must 
be equally indifferent to the images of vice 



and virtue: As, on the other hand, it is 
always found, that a warm concern for the 
interests of our species is attended with a 
delicate feeling of all moral distinctions; a 
strong resentment of injury done to men; 
a lively approbation of their welfare. In this 
particular, though great superiority is observ- 
able of one man above another; yet none are 
so entirely indifferent to the interest of their 
fellow-creatures, as to perceive no distinc- 
tions of moral good and evil, in consequence of 
the different tendencies of actions and prin- 
ciples. How, indeed, can we suppose it pos- 
sible in any one, who wears a human heart, that 
if there be subjected to his censure, one char- 
acter or system of conduct, which is beneficial, 
and another, which is pernicious, to his species 
or community, he will not so much as give a 
cool preference to the former, or ascribe to it 
the smallest merit or regard? Let us suppose 
such a person ever so selfish; let private 
interest have engrossed ever so much his at- 
tention; yet in instances, where that is not 
concerned, he must unavoidably feel some pro- 
pensity to the good of mankind, and make 
it an object of choice, if everything else be 
equal. Would any man, who is walking along, 
tread as willingly on another's gouty toes, 
whom he has no quarrel with, as on the hard 
flint and pavement? There is here surely a 
difference in the case. We surely take into 
consideration the happiness and misery of 
others, in weighing the several motives of action, 
and incline to the former, where no private 
regards draw us to seek our own promotion or 
advantage by the injury of our fellow-creatures. 
And if the principles of humanity are capable, 
in many instances, of influencing our actions, 
they must, at all times, have some authority 
over our sentiments, and give us a general 
approbation of what is useful to society, and 
blame of what is dangerous or pernicious. 
The degrees of these sentiments may be the 
subject of controversy; but the reality of their 
existence, one should think, must be admitted, 
in every theory or system. 

A creature, absolutely malicious and spite- 
ful, were there any such in nature, must be 
worse than indifferent to the images of vice 
and virtue. All his sentiments must be in- 
verted, and directly opposite to those which 
prevail in the human species. Whatever con- 
tributes to the good of mankind, as it crosses 
the constant bent of his wishes and desires, 
must produce uneasiness and disapprobation; 
and on the contrary, whatever is the source of 



-• l (1 



DAVID HUME 



disorder and misery in society, must, for the 
same reason, be regarded with pleasure and 
complacency. Timon, who, probably from 

his affected spleen, more than any inveterate 

malice, was denominated the man hater, em- 
braced Alcibiades, with greal fondness. Go 
on my boyl cried he, acquire the confidence 
of the people: You will one </<'v, / foresee, be 
the cause of greal calamities to thorn: Could we 

admit the (wo principles of the Manieheans, 

it is an infallible consequence, thai their senti- 
ments of human aetions, as well as of every- 
thing else, must be totally opposite, and that 
ever) instance of justice and humanity, from 
its necessary tendency, must please the one 

deity and displease the other. All mankind 
so far resemble the good principle, that, where 
interest or revenge or envv perverts not our 
disposition, we are alwavs inclined, from OUT 

natural philanthropy, to give the preference 
to the happiness of society, ami consequently 

to virtue, above its opposite. Absolute, un- 

provoked, disinterested malice has never, per- 
haps, plaee in anv human breast; or if it 
had, must there pervert all the sentiments of 

morals, as well as the feelings of humanity. 
If the cruelty of Nero be allowed entirely 
voluntary, and not rather the effect ot constant 

fear and resentment; it is evident, that Tigel- 

linus, preferably to Seneca or Burrhus, must 

have possessed his steadv ami uniform appro- 
bation. 

A statesman or patriot, who serves our own 
country, in our own time, has alwavs a more 
passionate regard paid to him, than one whose 
beneficial influence operated on distant ages 
or remote nations; where the good, resulting 
from his generous humanity, being less eon 
nected with us, seems more obseure, and alleets 
us with a less lively sympathy. We mav own 
the merit to 1h- equally great, though our 
sentiments are not raised to an equal height, 
in both eases. The judgment here corrects 
the inequalities of our internal emotions and 
perceptions; in like manner, as it preserves 
us from error, in the several variations of 
images, presented to our external senses. The 
same objeet, at a double distance, really throws 
on the eve a picture of but half the bulk; vet 
we imagine that it appears of the same si.e 
in both situations; beeause we know, that on 
our approach to it, its image would expand 
on the eve. and that the difference consists not 
in the objeet itself, but in our position with 
regard to it And, indeed, without sueh a 

correction of appearances, both in internal and 



external sentiment, men eould never think or 
talk Steadily on anv subject; while their fluc- 
tuating situations produce a continual varia 
tion on objects, and throw them into such 
different and contrary lights and positions. 

The more we converse with mankind, and 
the greater social intercourse we maintain, the 
more shall we be familiarised to these general 
preferences and distinctions, without which OUT 

conversation and discourse could scarcely be 
rendered intelligible to each other. Every 
man's interest is peculiar to himself, and the 
aversions and desires, which result from it, 
cannot be supposed to affect others in a like 
degree. General language, therefore, being 
formed for general use, must be moulded on 
some more general views, ami must affix the 
epithets of praise or blame, in conformity to 
Sentiments, which arise from the general in- 
terests of the community. And if these senti- 
ments, in most men, be not so strong as those, 
which have a reference to private good; vet 
still they must make some distinction, even in 
persons the most depraved and selfish; and 
must attach the notion of good to a beneficent 
conduct, and of evil to the contrary. Sv m 
pathy, we shall allow, is much fainter than our 
Concern for ourselves, and sympathy with pet- 
sons remote from us, much fainter than that 
with persons near and contiguous; but for 
this very reason, it is necessary for us. in our 
calm judgments and discourse concerning 
the characters of men, to neglect "all these 
differences, and render our sentiments more 

public and social, besides, that we ourselves 

often change our situation in this particular, 

we every day meet with persons, who are 
in a situation different from us, and who could 
never com erst- with us, were we to remain 
constantly in that position and point of view, 
which is peculiar to ourselves. The inter- 
course of sentiments, therefore, in society and 
conversation, makes us form some general 
unalterable standard, by which we may ap- 
prove or disapprove of characters and man 
ners. And though the heart takes not part with 
those general notions, nor regulates all its love 
and hatred, hv the universal, abstract differ- 
ences of vice and virtue, without regard to self, 
or the persons with whom we are more inti- 
mately Connected; vet have these moral dif- 
ferences a considerable influence, and being 
Sufficient, at least, for discourse, serve all 
our purposes in company, in the pulpit, on 
the theatre and in the schools 

Thus, in whatever light we take this subject. 



LAURKNCE STKRNK 



?47 



the merit, ascribed to the social virtues, appears 
still uniform, and arises chiefly from thai regard, 
which the natural sentiment <>f benevolence 
engages us to pay to the interests of mankind 
and society. II we consider the principles 
of the human make, sueh as they appear to 

daily experience and observation, we must, 

a priori, conclude it impossible for such a 
creature as man to lie totally indifferent to the 
well or ill being of his fellow creatures, and not 
readily, of himself, to pronounce, where noth- 
ing gives him any particular bias, thai what 
promotes their happiness is good, what tends 

to their misery is evil, without any farther re 
gard Or Consideration. Here then are the faint 
rudiments, at least, or outlines, of a general 
distinction between actions; and in proportion 
as the humanity of the person is supposed to 
increase, his connection with those who arc- 
in jured or benefited, and his lively conception 
of their misery or happiness; his consctpienl 

censure or approbation acquires proportionable 

vigour. There is no necessity, that a generous 
action, barely mentioned in an old history 
or remote gazette, should communicate any 
strong feelings of applause and admiral ion. 
Virtue, placed at such a distance, is like a 
fixed star, which, though to the eye of reason, 
it may appear as luminous as the sun in his 
meridian, is so infinitely removed, as to affect 
the senses, neither with light nor heat. Bring 
this virtue nearer, by our acquaintance or con- 
nection with the persons, or even by an eloquent 
recital of the case; our hearts are immediately 
caught, our sympathy enlivened, and our cool 
approbation converted into the warmest senti- 
ments of friendship and regard. These seem 
necessary and infallible consecpiences of the 
general principles of human nature, as dis- 
covered in common life and practice. 

Again; reverse these views and reasonings: 
Consider the mailer a posteriori ; and weighing 
the consecpiences, inquire if the merit of social 
virtue he not, in a great measure, derived from 
the feelings of humanity, with which it affects 
the Spectators. It appears to be matter of fact, 
that the circumstance of utility, in all subjects, 
is a source of praise and approbation: That it 
is constantly appealed to in all moral decisions 
concerning the merit and demerit of actions: 
That it is the sole source of that high regard 
paid to justice, fidelity, honour, allegiance, 
and chastity: That it is inseparable from all 
the other social virtues, humanity, generosity, 
charity, affability, lenity, mercy, and modem 
tion: And, in a word, that it is a foundation 



of the chief part of morals, which has a ref- 
erence lo mankind and our fellow crealures. 

Il appears also, thai, in our general appro 
bation of characters and manners, the useful 
tendency of the social virtues moves us nol by 
any regards lo self interest, but has an influence 
much more universal and extensive. It ap 
pears, thai a tendency t<> public good, and to the 
promoting of peace-, harmony, and order in 
society, does always, by affecting the benevolent 
principles of our frame, engage us on the side 
of the social virtues. And it appears, as an 
additional confirmation, that these principles 
of humanity and sympathy enter so deeply into 
all our sentiments, and have so powerful an 
influence, as may enable them to excite the 
strongest censure and applause. The present 
theory is the simple result of all these infer 
ences, each of which seems founded on uniform 
experience and observation. 

Were it doubtful, whether there were any such 
principle in our nature as humanity or a con 
Cern for others, yet when we see, in number 
less instances, that whatever has a tendency 
to promote the interests of society, is so highly 
approved of, we ought thence to learn the force 
of the benevolent principle; since il is impos- 
sible for anything to please as means to an 
end, where the end is totally indifferent. On 
the other hand, were it doubtful, whether there- 
were, implanted in our nature, any general 

principle of moral blame and approbation, yet 

when we see, in numberless instances, the in- 
fluence of humanity, we ought thence to con- 
clude, that it is impossible, but that every- 
thing, which promotes the- interest of society, 
must communicate pleasure, and what is 
pernicious give uneasiness, but when these 
different reflections and observations concur 
in establishing the same conclusion, musl they 
not bestow an undisputed evidence upon it? 

It is however hoped, that the progress of this 
argument will bring a farther confirmation of 
the present theory, by showing the rise of other 
sentiments of esteem and regard from the same 
or like principles. 

LAURENCE STERNE (1713-1768) 

TRISTRAM SHANDY 

VOL. VIII 

Chapter XXIII 

As soon as the Corporal had finished I hi- 
story of his amour, — or rather my uncle Toby 



248 



LAURENCE STERNE 



for him, — Mrs. Wadman silently sallied forth 
from her arbour, replaced the pin in her mob, 
passed the wicker-gate, and advanced slowly 
towards my uncle Toby's sentry-box: the dis- 
position which Trim had made in my uncle 
Toby's mind was too favourable a crisis to be 
let slip 

— The attack was determined upon: it was 
facilitated still more by my uncle Toby's 
having ordered the Corporal to wheel off the 
pioneer's shovel, the spade, the pick-axe, the 
picquets, and other military stores which lay 
scattered upon the ground where Dunkirk 
stood. — The Corporal had marched; — the 
field was clear. 

Now, consider, Sir, what nonsense it is, 
either in fighting, or writing, or anything else 
(whether in rhyme to it or not), which a man 
has occasion to do, — to act by plan : for if 
ever Plan, independent of all circumstances, 
deserved registering in letters of gold (I mean 
in the archives of Gotham) — it was certainly 
the plan of Mrs. Wadman's attack of my uncle 
Toby in his sentry-box, by Plan. Now, the 
plan hanging up in it at this juncture, being the 
Plan of Dunkirk, — and the tale of Dunkirk 
a tale of relaxation, it opposed every impression 
she could make: and, besides, could she have 
gone upon it, — the manoeuvre of fingers and 
hands in the attack of the sentry-box was so 
outdone by that of the fair Beguine's, in Trim's 
story, — that just then, that particular attack, 
however successful before — became the most 
heartless attack that could be made. 

O ! let woman alone for this. Mrs. Wad- 
man had scarce opened the wicker-gate, when 
her genius sported with the change of circum- 
stances. 

She formed a new attack in a moment. 



Chapter XX IV 

— I am half distracted, Captain Shandy, said 
Mrs. Wadman, holding up her cambric-hand- 
kerchief to her left eve, as she approached the 
door of my uncle Toby's sentry-box; a mote, 
— or sand, — or something, — I know not 
what, has got into this eye of mine; — do look 
into it : — it is not in the white. — 

In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged her- 
self close in beside mv uncle Toby and squeezing 
herself down upon the corner of his bench, she 
gave him an opportunity of doing it without 
rising up. . . . Do look into it, said she. 

Honest soul ! thou didst look into it with as 
much innocencv of heart as ever child looked 



into a raree-show-box; and 'twere as much a 
sin to have hurt thee. 

If a man will be peeping of his own accord 
into things of that nature, I've nothing to say 
to it. 

My uncle Toby never did: and I will answer 
for him that he would have sat quietly upon a 
sofa from June to January (which, you know, 
takes in both the hot and cold months), with 
an eye as fine as the Thracian Rhodope's 
beside him, without being able to tell whether 
it was a black or a blue one. 

The difficulty was to get my uncle Toby to 
look at one at all. 

'Tis surmounted. And 

I see him yonder, with his pipe pendulous 
in his hand, and the ashes falling out of it, — 
looking, — and looking, — then rubbing his 
eyes, — and looking again, with twice the 
good-nature that ever Galileo looked for a 
spot in the sun. 

In vain ! for, by all the powers which ani- 
mate the organ — Widow Wadman's left eye 
shines this moment as lucid as her right; — 
there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor 
chaff, nor speck, nor particle of opaque matter 
floating in it. — There is nothing, my dear pa- 
ternal uncle ! but one lambent delicious fire, 
furtively shooting out from every part of it, 
in all directions into thine. 

If thou lookest, uncle Toby, in search of this 
mote one moment longer, thou art undone. 

Chapter XXV 

An eye is, for all the world, exactly like a 
cannon, in this respect, that it is not so much the 
eve or the cannon, in themselves, as it is the 
carriage of the eye — and the carriage of the 
cannon; by which both the one and the other 
are enabled to do so much execution. I don't 
think the comparison a bad one: however, as 
'tis made and placed at the head of the chapter, 
as much for use as ornament; all I desire in 
return is that, whenever I speak of Mrs. Wad- 
man's eyes (except once in the next period) 
that you keep it in your fancy. 

I protest, Madam, said my uncle Toby, I can 
see nothing whatever in your eye. 

. . . It is not in the wdiite, said Mrs. Wadman. 
— My uncle Toby looked with might and main 
into the pupil. 

Now, of all the eyes which ever were created, 
from your own, Madam, up to those of Venus 
herself, which certainly were as venereal 
a pair of eyes as ever stood in a head, there 
never was an eye of them all so fitted to rob 



TRISTRAM SHANDY 



249 



my uncle Toby of his repose as the very eye 
at which he was looking; it was not, Madam, 
a rolling eye, — a romping, or a wanton one; 

— nor was it an eye sparkling, petulant, or 
imperious — of high claims and terrifying 
exactions, which would have curdled at once 
that milk of human nature of which my uncle 
Toby was made up; — but 'twas an eye full 
of gentle salutations, — and soft responses, — 
speaking, — not like the trumpet-stop of some 
ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk 
to, holds coarse converse, but whispering soft, 

— like the last low accents of an expiring saint, 

— "How can you live comfortless, Captain 
Shandy, and alone, without a bosom to lean 
your head on, — or trust your cares to?" 

It was an eye — 

But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say 
another word about it. 

It did my uncle Toby's business. 

Chapter XXVI 

There is nothing shows the characters of my 
father and my uncle Toby in a more entertain- 
ing light than their different manner of deport- 
ment under the same accident; — for I call 
not love a misfortune, from a persuasion that a 
man's heart is ever the better for it. — Great 
God! what must my uncle Toby's have been, 
when 'twas all benignity without it ! — 

My father, as appears from many of his 
papers, was very subject to this passion before 
he married; — buj, from a little subacid kind 
of drollish impatience in his nature, whenever 
it befell him, he would never submit to it like 
a Christian; but would pish, and huff, and 
bounce, and kick, and play the Devil, and write 
the bitterest Philippics against the eye that 
ever man wrote: — there is one in verse upon 
somebody's eye or other, that lor two or three 
nights together, had put him by his rest; which, 
in his first transport of resentment against it, 
he begins thus: — 

"A Devil 'tis — and mischief such doth work 
As never yet <H<1 Pagan, Jew, or Turk." 

In short, during the whole paroxysm, my 
father was all abuse and foul language, ap- 
proaching rather towards malediction ; — only 
he did not do it with as much method as 
Emulphus; he was loo impetuous; nor with 
Emulphus's policy; — for tho' my father, with 
the most intolerant spirit, would curse both 
this and that, and everything under Heaven, 



which was either aiding or abetting to his love, 
— yet he never concluded his chapter, curses 
upon it, without cursing himself into the bar 
gain, as one of the most egregious fools and cox 
combs, he would say, that ever was let loose in 
the world. 

My uncle Toby, on the contrary, look it like 
a land), — sat still, and let the poison work in 
his veins without resistance: in the sharpest 
exacerbations of his wound (like that on his 
groin) he never dropped one fretful or dis 
contented word, — he blamed neither heaven 
nor earth, — nor thought, nor spoke an in- 
jurious thing of any body, nor any part of it ; 
he sat solitary and pensive with his pipe, — 
looking at his lame leg, — then whiffing out 
a sentimental heigh-ho! which, mixing, with 
the smoke, incommoded no one mortal. 

He took it like a lamb, I say. 

In truth, he had mistook it at first; for, 
having taken a ride with my father that very 
morning, to save, if possible, a beautiful wood, 
which the dean and chapter wen' hewing down 
to give to the poor; which said wood being in 
full view of my uncle Toby's house, and of 
singular service to him in his description of 
the battle of Wynendale, — by trotting on too 
hastily to save it, upon an uneasy saddle, worse 
horse, etc., etc. — it had so happened that the 
serous part of the blood had got betwixt the 
two skins in the nethermost part of my uncle 
Toby, — the first shootings of which (as my 
uncle Toby had no experience of love) he had 
taken for a part of the passion, till the blister 
breaking in the- one case, and the other remain- 
ing, my uncle Toby was presently convinced 
that his wound was not a skin-deep wound, but 
that it had gone to his heart. 



Chapter XXVII 

The world is ashamed of being virtuous. — 
My uncle Toby knew little of the world; and 
therefore, when he felt he was in love with 
Widow Wadman, he had no conception that 
the thing was any more to be made a mystery 
of than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut 
with a gapp'd knife across his finger. Had it 
been otherwise, — yet, as he ever looked upon 
Trim as a humble friend, and saw fresh rea- 
sons every day of his life to treat him as such, 
— it would have made no variation in the 
manner in which he informed him of the affair. 

"I am in love, Corporal!" quoth my uncle 
Toby. 



250 



LAURENCE STERNE 



Chapter XXVIII 

In love ! — said the Corporal, — your Honour 
was very well the day before yesterday, when 
I was telling your Honour the story of the King 
of Bohemia . . . Bohemia ! said my uncle 
Toby — musing a long time — What became 
of that story, Trim? 

. . . We lost it, an' please your Honour, 
somehow betwixt us; but your Honour was as 
free from love then as I am. . . . 'Twas just 
as thou went'st off with the wheelbarrow, — 
with Mrs. Wadman, quoth my uncle Toby. — 
She has left a ball here, added my uncle Toby, 
pointing to his breast. 

. . . She can no more, an' please your 
Honour, stand a siege than she could fly, cried 
the Corporal. 

. . . But, as we are neighbours, Trim, the 
best way, I think, is to let her know it civilly 
at first, quoth my uncle Toby. 

. . . Now, if I might presume, said the 
Corporal, to differ from your Honour. . . . 

. . . Why else do I talk to thee, Trim ? said 
my uncle Toby, mildly. . . . 

. . . Then I would begin, an' please your 
Honour, making a good thundering attack upon 
her, in return, — and telling her civilly after- 
wards; — for if she knows anything of your 
Honour's being in love, beforehand. . . . L — d 
help her ! — she knows no more at present of 
it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, — than the child 
unborn. 

Precious souls ! — 

Mrs. Wadman had told it, with all its cir- 
cumstances, to Mrs. Bridget, twenty-four hours 
before; and was at that very moment sitting 
in council with her, touching some slight mis- 
givings with regard to the issue of the affairs, 
which the Devil, who never lies dead in a ditch, 
had put into her head, — before he would 
allow half time to get quietly through her Te 
Dciini. 

I am terribly afraid, said Widow Wadman, 
in case I should marry him, Bridget, — that 
the poor Captain will not enjoy his health, with 
the monstrous wound upon his groin. 

... It may not, Madam, be so very large, 
replied Bridget, as you think; — and I believe, 
besides, added she, — that 'tis dried up. 

... I could like to know, — merely for his 
sake, said Mrs. Wadman. 

. . . We'll know the long and the broad of 
it in ten days, answered Mrs. Bridget; for 
whilst the Captain is paying his addresses to 
you, I'm confident Mr. Trim will be for mak- 



ing love to me; — and I'll let him as much as 
he will, added Bridget, to get it all out of him. 

The measures were taken at once ; — and 
my uncle Toby and the Corporal went on with 
theirs. 

Now, quoth the Corporal, setting his left 
hand a-kimbo, and giving such a flourish with 
his right as just promised success — and no 
more, — if your Honour will give me leave to 
lay down the plan of this attack. . . . 

Thou wilt please me by it, Trim, said my 
uncle Toby, exceedingly: — and, as I foresee 
thou must act in it as my aide-de-camp, here's 
a crown, Corporal, to begin with, to steep thy 
commission. 

. . . Then, an' please your Honour, said the 
Corporal (making a bow first for his commis- 
sion) — we will begin by getting your Honour's 
laced clothes out of the great campaign-trunk, 
to be well aired, and have the blue and gold 
taken up at the sleeves; — and I'll put your 
white Ramallie-wig fresh into pipes; — and 
send for a tailor to have your Honour's thin 
scarlet breeches turned. . . . 

I had better take the red plush ones, quoth 
my uncle Toby. . . . They will be too clumsy, 
said the Corporal. 

Chapter XXIX 

. . . Thou wilt get a brush and a little 
chalk to my sword. . . . 

'Twill be only in your Honour's way, replied 
Trim. 

Chapter XXX 

. . . But your Honour's two razors shall be 
new set — and I will get my Montero-cap 
furbished up, and put on poor Lieutenant Le 
Fevre's regimental coat, which your Honour 
gave me to wear for his sake ; — and as soon 
as your Honour is clean shaved, — and has got 
your clean shirt on, with your blue and gold or 
your fine scarlet, — sometimes one and some- 
times t'other, — and everything is ready for 
the attack, — we'll march up boldly, as if it 
was to the face of a bastion; and whilst your 
Honour engages Mrs. Wadman in the parlour, 
to the right, — I'll attack Mrs. Bridget in the 
kitchen to the left ; and having seized the pass, 
I'll answer for it, said the Corporal, snapping 
his fingers over his head, — that the day is our 
own. 

... I wish I may but manage it right, said 
my uncle Toby; — but I declare, Corporal, 
I had rather march up to the very edge of a 
trench. 



TOBIAS SMOLLETT 



2 5 J 



... A woman is quite a different thing, 
said the Corporal. 

... I suppose so, quoth my uncle Toby. 

TOBIAS SMOLLETT (1721-1771) 
From HUMPHRY CLINKER 

To Sir Watkin Phillips, of Jesus 
College, Oxon 

Edinburgh, August 8. 
Dear Phillips, 

If I stay much longer at Edinburgh, I shall 
be changed into a downright Caledonian. My 
uncle observes that I have already acquired 
something of the country accent. The people 
here are so social and attentive in their civilities 
to strangers, that I am insensibly sucked into 
the channel of their manners and customs, 
although they are in fact much more different 
from ours than you can imagine. That dif- 
ference, however, which struck me very much 
at my first arrival, I now hardly perceive, and 
my ear is perfectly reconciled to the Scotch 
accent, which I find even agreeable in the mouth 
of a pretty woman. It is a sort of Doric dialect, 
which gives an idea of amiable simplicity. You 
cannot imagine how we have been caressed 
and feasted in the good town of Edinburgh, of 
which we are become free denizens and guild- 
brothers, by the special favour of the magis- 
tracy. 

I had a whimsical commission from Bath 
to a citizen of this metropolis. Quin, under- 
standing our intention to visit Edinburgh, 
pulled out a guinea, and desired the favour I 
would drink it at a tavern, with a particular 
friend and bottle companion of his, one Mr. 

R. C , a lawyer of this city. I charged 

myself with the commission, and taking the 
guinea, "You see," said I, "I have pocketed 
your bounty." — "Yes," replied Quin, laugh- 
ing, "and a headache into the bargain, if you 
drink fair." I made use of this introduction to 

Mr. C , who received me with open arms, 

and gave me the rendezvous, according to the 
cartel. He had provided a company of jolly 
fellows, among whom I found myself extremely 

happy, and did Mr. C and Quin all the 

justice in my power; but, alas ! I was no more 
than a tyro among a troop of veterans, who had 
compassion on my youth, and conveyed me 
home in the morning, by what means I know 
not. Quin was mistaken, however, as to the 
headache; the claret was too good to treat me 
so roughly. 



While Mr. Bramble holds conferences with 
the graver literati of the place, and our females 
are entertained at visits by the Scotch ladies, 
who are the best and kindest creatures on earth, 
I pass my time among the bucks of Edinburgh, 
who, with a great share of spirit and vivacity, 
have a certain shrewdness and self-command 
that is not often found among their neighbours 
in the heyday of youth and exultation. Not 
a hint escapes a Scotchman that can be inter- 
preted into offence by any individual of the 
company; and national reflections are never 
heard. In this particular, I must own, we 
are both unjust and ungrateful to the Scotch; 
for, as far as I am able to judge, they have a 
real esteem for the natives of South Britain; 
and never mention our country but with ex- 
pressions of regard. Nevertheless, they are 
far from being servile imitators of our modes 
and fashionable vices. All their customs and 
regulations of public and private economy, of 
business and diversion, are in their own style. 
This remarkably predominates in their looks, 
their dress, and manner, their music, and even 
their cookery. Our squire declares, that he 
knows not another people on earth so strongly 
marked with a national character. Now we 
are on the article of cookery, I must own some 
of their dishes are savoury, and even delicate; 
but I am not yet Scotchman enough to relish 
their singed sheep's-head and haggis, which 
were provided at our request one day at Mr. 
Mitchelson's, where we dined. The first put 
me in mind of the history of Congo, in which I 
read of negroes' heads sold publicly in the 
markets; the last, being a mess of minced 
lights, livers, suet, oatmeal, onions, and pepper, 
enclosed in a sheep's stomach, had a very 
sudden effect on mine, and the delicate Mrs. 
Tabby changed colour; when the cause of our 
disgust was instantaneously removed at the 
nod of our entertainer. The Scotch in general 
are attached to this composition, with a sort 
of national fondness, as well as to their oatmeal 
bread; which is presented at every table, in 
thin triangular cakes, baked on a plate of iron, 
called a girdle; and these many of the natives, 
even in the higher ranks of life, prefer to 
wheaten bread, which they have here in per- 
fection. You know we used to vex poor 
Murray, of Balliol College, by asking, if there 
was really no fruit but turnips in Scotland ! 
Sure enough I have seen turnips make their 
appearance, not as a dessert, but by way of 
hors d'ceuvres, or whets, as radishes are served 
up betwixt more substantial dishes in France 



-5- 



TOBIAS SMOLLKTT 



and Italy; but it must bo observed, that the 
turnips of tin's country arc as much superior 
in sweetness, delicacy, ami flavour, to those 

of England, as a musk-melon is to the stock 
of a common cabbage. They are small and 
conical, of a yellowish colour, with a very thin 
skin; and over and above their agreeable 
taste, are valuable for their antiscorbutic 
quality. As to the fruit now in season, such 
as cherries, gooseberries, and currants, there is 
no want of them at Edinburgh; and in the 
gardens of some gentlemen who live in this 
neighbourhood, there is now a very favourable 
appearance of apricots, ix-aches, nectarines, 
and even grapes; nay, 1 have seen a very fine 
show of pine-apples within a few miles of this 
metropolis. Indeed, we have no reason to be 
surprised at these particulars, when we con- 
sider how little difference there is. in fact, 
betwixt this climate and that of London. 

All the remarkable places in the city and its 
avenues, for ten miles around, we have visited, 
much to our satisfaction. In the castle are 
some royal apartments, where the sovereign 
occasionally resided; and here are carefully 
preserved the regalia of the kingdom, consisting 
of a crown, said to be of great value, a sceptre, 
and a sword of state, adorned with jewels. 
Of these symbols of sovereignty the people are 
exceedingly jealous. A report being spread, 
during the sitting of the union parliament, that 
they were removed to London, such a tumult 
arose, that the lord commissioner would 
have been torn in pieces if he had not pro- 
duced them for the satisfaction of the 
populace. 

The palace of Holvrood -house is an elegant 
piece of architecture, but Mink in an obscure. 
and., as I take it, unwholesome bottom, where 
one would imagine it had been placed on pur- 
pose to be concealed. The apartments are 
lofty, but unfurnished; and as for the pictures 
of the Scottish kings, from Fergus I to King 
William, they are paltry daubings, mostly by 
the same hand, painted either from the imagi- 
nation, or porters hired to sit for the purpose. 
All the diversions of London we enjoy at Edin- 
burgh in a small compass. Here is a well- 
conducted concert, in which several gentlemen 
perform on different instruments. The Scots 
are all musicians. Every man you meet plays 
on the flute, the violin, or violoncello; and there 
is one nobleman whose compositions are uni- 
versale admired. Our company of actors is 
very tolerable; and a subscription is nmv on 
foot for building a new theatre: but their 



assemblies please me above all other public 

exhibitions. 

We have been at the hunters' ball, where 1 
was really astonished to see such a number of 
tine women. The English, who have never 
crossed the Tweed, imagine, erroneously, that 
the Scotch ladies are not remarkable for per- 
sonal attractions; but 1 can declare with a safe 
conscience I never saw so many handsome 
females together as were assembled on this 
occasion. At the Leith races, the best com- 
pany comes hither from the remoter provinces; 
so that, 1 suppose, we had all the beauty of the 
kingdom concentrated as it were into one focus; 
which was indeed so vehement, that my heart 
could hardly resist its power, between friends, 
it has sustained some damage from the bright 

eves of the charming Miss R , whom I had 

the honour to dance with at the ball. The 
countess of Melville attracted all eyes, and 
the admiration of all present. She was ac- 
companied by the agreeable Miss Grieve, who 
made many conquests: nor did my sister Liddy 
pass unnoticed in the assembly. She is become 
a toast at Edinburgh, by the name of the Fair 
Cambrian, and has already been the occasion 
of much wine-shed; but the poor girl met with 
an accident at the ball, which has given us 
great disturbance. 

A young gentleman, the express image of 
that rascal Wilson, went up to ask her to dance 
a minuet; and his sudden appearance shocked 
her so much, that she» fainted away. I call 
Wilson a rascal, because if he had been really 
a gentleman, with honourable intentions, he 
would have ere now appeared in his own char- 
acter. I must own, my blood boils with indig- 
nation when I think of that fellow's pre- 
sumption; and Heaven confound me if I don't 
— but I won't be so womanish as to rail — 
time will perhaps furnish occasion — thank 
God, the cause of Liddy's disorder remains a 
secret. The lady-directress of the ball, think- 
ing she was overcome by the heat of the place, 
had her conveyed to another room, where she 
soon recovered so well, as to return and join 
in the country dances, in which the Scotch 
lasses acquit themselves with such spirit and 
agility, as put their partners to the height of 
their mettle. I believe our aunt, Mrs. Tabitha, 
had entertained hojx^s of being able to do some 
execution among the cavaliers at this assembly. 
She had been several days in consultation with 
milliners and mantua-makers, preparing tor 
T e occasion, at which she made her appearance 
in a full suit of damask, so thick ami heavy, 



HUMPHRY CLINKER 



2 53 



that the sight of it alone, at this season of the 
year, was sufficient to draw drops of sweat 
from any man of ordinary imagination. She 
danced one minuet with our friend Mr. Mitchel- 
son, who favoured her so far, in the spirit of 
hospitality and politeness; and she was called 
out a second time by the young laird of Baly- 
mawhaple, who, coming in by accident, could 
not readily find any other partner; but as the 
first was a married man, and the second paid 
no particular homage to her charms, which were 
also overlooked by the rest of the company, 
she became dissatisfied and censorious. At 
supper, she observed that the Scotch gentlemen 
made a very good figure, when they were a little 
improved by travelling; and, therefore, it was 
pity they did not all take the benefit of going 
abroad. She said the women were awkward, 
masculine creatures; that, in dancing, they 
lifted their legs like so many colts; that they 
had no idea of graceful motion; and put on 
their clothes in a frightly manner: but if the 
truth must be told, Tabby herself was the most 
ridiculous figure, and the worst dressed, of the 
whole assembly. The neglect of the male sex 
rendered her malcontent and peevish; she now 
found fault with everything at Edinburgh, and 
teased her brother to leave the place, when 
she was suddenly reconciled to it on a religious 
consideration. There is a sect of fanatics, 
who have separated themselves from the es- 
tablished kirk, under the name of Seceders. 
They acknowledge no earthly head of the 
church, reject lay patronage, and maintain the 
Methodist doctrines of the new birth, the new 
light, the efficacy of grace, the insufficiency of 
works, and the operations of the spirit. Mrs. 
Tabitha, attended by Humphry Clinker, was 
introduced to one of their conventicles, where 
they both received much edification; and she 
has had the good fortune to become acquainted 
with a pious Christian, called Mr. Moffat, who 
is very powerful in prayer, and often assists 
her in private exercises of devotion. 

I never saw such a concourse of genteel com- 
pany at any races in England, as appeared 
on the course of Leith. Hard by, in the fields 
called the Links, the citizens of Edinburgh 
divert themselves at a game called golf, in 
which they use a curious kind of bats tipped 
with horn, and small elastic balls of leather, 
stuffed with feathers, rather less than tennis- 
balls, but of a much harder consistence. This 
they strike with such force and dexterity from 
one hole to another, that they will fly to an 
incredible distance. Of this diversion the 



Scots are so fond, that when the weather will 
permit, you may see a multitude of all ranks, 
from the senator of justice to the lowest trades- 
man, mingled together, in their shirts, and 
following the balls with the utmost eagerness. 
Among others, I was shown one particular 
set of golfers, the youngest of whom was turned 
of fourscore. They were all gentlemen of in- 
dependent fortunes, who had amused them- 
selves with this pastime for the best part of a 
century, without having ever felt the least alarm 
from sickness or disgust; and they never went 
to bed, without having each the best part of 
a gallon of claret in his belly. Such uninter- 
rupted exercise, cooperating with the keen air 
from the sea, must, without all doubt, keep 
the appetite always on edge, and steel the con- 
stitution against all the common attacks of 
distemper. 

The Leith races gave occasion to another 
entertainment of a very singular nature. There 
is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of er- 
rand-boys called cawdies, who ply in the streets 
at night with paper lanterns, and are very 
serviceable in carrying messages. These fel- 
lows, though shabby in their appearance, and 
rudely familiar in their address, are wonder- 
fully acute, and so noted for fidelity, that there 
is no instance of a cawdy's having betrayed 
his trust. Such is their intelligence, that they 
know not only every individual of the place, but 
also every stranger, by the time he has been 
four-and-twenty hours in Edinburgh; and no 
transaction, even the most private, can escape 
their notice. They are particularly famous for 
their dexterity in executing one of the functions 
of Mercury; though, for my own part, I never 
employed them in this department of business. 
Had I occasion for any service of this nature, 
my own man, Archy M'Alpine, is as well quali- 
fied as e'er a cawdy in Edinburgh ; and I am 
much mistaken, if he has not been heretofore 
of their fraternity. Be that as it may, they 
resolved to give a dinner and a ball at Leith, 
to which they formally invited all the young 
noblemen and gentlemen that were at the races; 
and this invitation was reinforced by an as- 
surance, that all the celebrated ladies of pleas- 
ure would grace the entertainment with their 
company. I received a card on this occasion, 
and went thither with half a dozen of my ac- 
quaintance. In a large hall, the cloth was laid 
on a long range of tables joined together, and 
here the company seated themselves, to the 
number of about fourscore, lords and lairds 
and other gentlemen, courtesans and cawdies, 



'51 



TOBIAS SMOLLKTT 



mingled together, as the slaves and their 
masters were in the time of the Saturnalia in 
ancienl Rome. The toastmaster, who sat at 
tin- upper end, was one cawdy Fraser, a veteran 
pimp, distinguished for his humour and sa- 
gacity, well known and much respected in his 

profession by all the guests, male and female, 

that were here assembled. He Had bespoke 

the dinner and the wine: he had taken care 

thai all his brethren should appear in decenl 

apparel and clean linen; and he himself wore 

a periwig with three tails, in honour of the 
festival. 1 assure you the banquel was both 
elegant and plentiful, and seasoned with a 

thousand sallies, that promoted a general spirit 
of mirth and good humour. After the dessert, 

Mr. Fraser proposed the following toasts, which 

1 don't pretend to explain : "The best in Chris- 
tendom " "Gibb's contract" "The beg 
gar's henison" "King and kirk" —"Great 
Britain and Ireland." Then, filling a bumper, 
and turning to me, "Mester Malford," 
said he, "may a' unkindness cease betwixl 

John Bull and his sister Moggy." The ne\l 
person he singled out was a nobleman who had 

been long abroad. "Ma lord," cried Fraser, 
"lure is a bumper to a' those noblemen who 
have virtue enough to spend their rents in their 
.mi COUntray." He afterwards addressed him- 
self to a member of parliament in these words: 
"Mester - , I'm sure ye'll ha' nae objection 
to my drinking, Disgrace and dool to ilka Scot, 
that sells his conscience and his vote." lie 
discharged a third sarcasm at a person very 
gaily dressed, who had risen from small be- 
ginnings and made a considerable fortune at 
play. Filling his glass, and calling him by 
name, "Lang life," said he, "to the wvlie 
loon that gangs a field with the loom poke at 
his lun/ie, and comes hamc with a sackful o' 
siller." All these toasts being received with 
loud hursts of applause, Mr. Fraser called for 
pint glasses, and tilled his own to the brim: 
then standing up, and all his brethren following 
his example, "Ma lords and gentlemen, 
cried he, "here is a imp of thanks for the great 

and undeserved honour you haw done your 

poor errand hoys this day." So saying, he 
and they drank off their glasses in a trice, and 
(putting their seats, took their station each 
behind one of the other guests, exclaiming — 
"NOO we're your honours' cawdies again." 

The nobleman who had borne the first brunt 
of Mr. F laser's satire objected to his abdica- 
tion, lie said, as the company was assembled 
by imitation from the cawdies, he expected 



they were to be entertained at their expense, 
"by no means, my lord," cried Fraser; "1 
wad na be guilty of sic presumption for the 

wide warld, I never affronted a gentleman 

since I was bom; and sure, at this age, 1 won- 
not offer an indignity to sic an honourable con- 
vention." — "Well," said his lordship, "as you 
have expended some wit, you have a right 

to save your money. You have given me good 

counsel, and 1 take it in good part As you 
have voluntarily quitted your seat, 1 will take 
your place, with the leave of the good com- 
pany, and think myself happy to be hailed, 
'Father of the feast.'" lie was forthwith 

elected into the chair, and complimented in a 

bumper on his new character. 

The claret continued to circulate without 
interruption, till the glasses seemed to dance 
on the table; and this, perhaps, was a hint to 
the ladies to call for music. At eight in the 
evening the ball began in another apartment: 
at midnight we went to supper; but it was broad 
dav before 1 found the way to my lodgings; 
and, no doubt, his lordship had a swinging 
bill to discharge. 

In short, 1 have lived so riotouslv for some 
weeks, that my uncle begins to be alarmed on 
the score of my constitution, and verv seriously 
observes, that all his own infirmities are owing 
to such excesses indulged in his vouth. Mis. 
Tabitha says it would be more for the advan- 
tage of my soul as well as body, if, instead 
of frequenting these scenes of debauchery, I 
would accompany Mr. Moffat and her to hear 
a sermon of the Reverend Mr. MVorkcndale. 
Clinker often exhorts me, with a groan, to take 
care of my precious health; and even Archy 
M 'Alpine, when he happens to be overtaken 
(which is oftener the case than I could wish), 
reads me a long lecture on temperance and 
sobriety: and is so very wise and sententious, 
that, if 1 could provide him with a professor's 
chair, I would willingly give up the benefit of 
his admonitions and service together; for 1 
was tutor sick at alma mater. 

1 am not, however, so much engrossed by the 
gaieties of Edinburgh, but that I find time to 
make parties in the family wav. We have not 
only seen all the villas and villages within ten 
miles of the capital, but we have also crossed the 
Frith, which is an arm of the sea, seven miles 
broad, that divides Lothian from the shire, or, 
as the Scots call it, "the kingdom of Fife." 
There is a number of large open sea boats that 
ply on this passage from l.eith to Kinghorn, 
which is a borough on the other side. In one 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



255 



of these our whole family embarked three days 
ago, excepting my sister, who, being exceedingly 

fearful of the water, was lefl to the 1 arc of Mrs. 
Mitchelson. We had an easy and quick pass- 
age into Fife, where we visited a number of 
poor towns on the sea-side, including St. 
Andrews, which is the skeleton of a venerable 
city, but we were much better pleased with 
sonic noble and elegant seats and castles, of 
which there is a greal number in that part of 
Scotland. Yesterday we took boat again, on 
our return to Leith, with a fair wind and agree- 
able weather; but we had not advanced half 
way, when the sky was suddenly overcast, and 
the wind changing, blew directly in our teeth; 
SO that we were obliged to turn, or lack the rest 
of the way. In a word, the gale increased to a 
storm of wind and rain, attended with such a 
fog, that we could not see the town of Leith, 
to which we were bound, nor even the castle 
Of Edinburgh, notwithstanding its high situa 
tion. It is not to be doubted but that we were 
all alarmed on this occasion; and, at the same 
time, most of the passengers were seized with a 
nausea that produced violent retchings. My 
aunt desired her brother to order the boatmen 
to put back to Kinghorn; and this expedient 
he actually proposed; but they assured him 
there was no danger. Mrs. Tabilha, finding 
them obstinate, began to scold, and insisted on 
my uncle's exerting his authority as a justice 
of the peace. Sick and peevish as he was, he 
could not help laughing at this wise proposal, 
telling her that his commission did not extend 
so far, and if it did, he should let the people lake 
their own way; for he thought it would be great 
presumption in him to direct them in the ex- 
ercise of their own profession. Mrs. Winifred 
Jenkins made a general clearance, with the as- 
sistance of Mr. Humphry Clinker, who joined 
her both in prayer and ejaculation. As he 
took it for granted that we should not be long 
in this world, he offered some spiritual con- 
solation to Mrs. Tabitha, who rejected it with 
great disgust, bidding him keep his sermons 
for those who had leisure to hear such non- 
sense. My uncle sat, recollected in himself, 
without speaking. My man Archy had re- 
course to a brandy-bottle, with which he made 
so inc, that 1 imagined he had sworn to die 
of drinking anything rather than sea-water; 
but the brandy had no more effect on him in 
the way of intoxication, than if it had been sea 
water in good earnest. As for myself, I was 
too much engrossed by the sickness at my 
stomach to think of anything else. Meanwhile 



the sea swelled mountains high; the boat 
pitched with such violence, as if it had been 

going to pieces; the cordage rattled, the wind 
roared, the lightning Hashed, the thunder be! 
lowed, and the rain descended in a deluge. 
Every lime the vessel was put about, \vc shipped 
a sea that drenched us all to the skin. When, 
by dint of turning, we thought to have cleared 
the pier-head, we were driven to leeward, and 
then the boatmen themselves began to fear that 
the tide would fail before we should fetch up 
our lee way; the next trip, however, brought us 
into smooth water, and we were safely landed 
on the quay about one o'clock in the afternoon. 
"To be sure," cried Tabby, when she found 
herself on lerni jirma, "we must all have per 
ished, if we had not been the particular care 
of Providence." — "Yes," replied my uncle; 
"but I am much of the honest Highlander's 
mind; after he had made such a passage as 
this, his friend told him he was much indebted 
to Providence. 'Certainly, ' said Donald; 
'but, by my saul, mon, Is'e ne'er trouble I'rovi 
dence again so long as the brig of Stirling 
stands.'" You must know the brig, or bridge, 
of Stirling stands above twenty miles up the 
river Forth, oi which this is the outlet. I don't 
find that our squire has suffered in his health 
from this adventure: but poor Liddy is in 
a peaking way. I'm afraid this unfortunate 
girl is uneasy in her mind; and this apprehen 
sion distracts me, for she is really an amiable 
creature. 

We shall set out to morrow or next day for 
Stirling and Glasgow; and we propose to 
penetrate a little way into the Highlands before 
we turn our course to the southward. In the 
meantime, commend me to all our friends 
round Carfax, and believe me to be ever yours, 

J. Melford. 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774) 

LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE 
WORM) TO HIS FRIENDS IN THE 

KAST 

LETTER XXI 

TllK ' 'IUNKSF. f.OKS TO SEE A I'l. VS 

The English are as fond of seeing plays acted 
as the Chinese; but there is a vast difference 
iii the maimer of conducting them. We play 
our pieces in the open air, the English theirs 
under cover; we act by daylight, they by the 



256 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



blaze of torches. One of our plays continues 
eight or ten days successively; an English piece 
seldom takes up above four hours in the rep- 
resentation. 

My companion in black, with whom I am 
now beginning to contract an intimacy, intro- 
duced me a few nights ago to the playhouse, 
where we placed ourselves conveniently at the 
foot of the stage. As the curtain was not drawn 
before my arrival, I had an opportunity of 
observing the behaviour of the spectators, and 
indulging those reflections which novelty gen- 
erally inspires. 

The rich in general were placed in the lowest 
seats, and the poor rose above them in degrees 
proportioned to their poverty. The order of 
precedence seemed here inverted; those who 
were undermost all the day, now enjoyed a 
temporary eminence, and became masters of 
the ceremonies. It was they who called for 
the music, indulging every noisy freedom, and 
testifying all the insolence of beggary in exal- 
tation. 

They who held the middle region seemed not 
so riotous as those above them, nor yet so tame 
as those below: to judge by their looks, many 
of them seemed strangers there as well as my- 
self. They were chiefly employed, during this 
period of expectation, in eating oranges, read- 
ing the story of the play, or making assignations. 

Those who sat in the lowest rows, which are 
called the pit, seemed to consider themselves 
as judges of the merit of the poet and the 
performers; they were assembled partly to be 
amused, and partly to show their taste ; appear- 
ing to labour under that restraint which an 
affectation of superior discernment generally 
produces. My companion, however, informed 
me, that not one in a hundred of them knew 
even the first principles of criticism; that they 
assumed the right of being censors because 
there was none to contradict their pretensions; 
and that every man who now called himself 
a connoisseur, became such to all intents and 
purposes. 

Those who sat in the boxes appeared in the 
most unhappy situation of all. The rest of the 
audience came merely for their own amusement ; 
these, rather to furnish out a part of the enter- 
tainment themselves. I could not avoid con- 
sidering them as acting parts in dumb show — 
not a courtesy or nod, that was not all the result 
of art; not a look nor a smile that was not 
designed for murder. Gentlemen and ladies 
ogled each other through spectacles; for, my 
companion observed, that blindness was of 



late become fashionable; all affected indif- 
ference and ease, while their hearts at the same 
time burned for conquest. Upon the whole, 
the lights, the music, the ladies in their gayest 
dresses, the men with cheerfulness and expec- 
tation in their looks, all conspired to make a 
most agreeable picture, and to fill a heart that 
sympathises at human happiness with inex- 
pressible serenity. 

The expected time for the play to begin at 
last arrived; the curtain was drawn, and the 
actors came on. A woman, who personated a 
queen, came in curtseying to the audience, 
who clapped their hands upon her appearance. 
Clapping of hands is, it seems, the manner of 
applauding in England; the manner is absurd, 
but every country, you know, has its peculiar 
absurdities. I was equally surprised, however, 
at the submission of the actress, who should have 
considered herself as a queen, as at the little 
discernment of the audience who gave her such 
marks of applause before she attempted to 
deserve them. Preliminaries between her and 
the audience being thus adjusted, the dialogue 
was supported between her and a most hopeful 
youth, who acted the part of her confidant. 
They both appeared in extreme distress, for it 
seems the queen had lost a child some fifteen 
years before, and still kept its dear resemblance 
next her heart, while her kind companion bore 
a part in her sorrows. 

Her lamentations grew loud; comfort is 
offered, but she detests the very "sound: she 
bids them preach comfort to the winds. Upon 
this her husband comes in, who, seeing the 
queen so much afflicted, can himself hardly 
refrain from tears, or avoid partaking in the soft 
distress. After thus grieving through three 
scenes, the curtain dropped for the first act. 

"Truly," said I to my companion, "these 
kings and queens are very much disturbed at 
no very great misfortune: certain I am, were 
people of humbler stations to act in this man- 
ner, they would be thought divested of com- 
mon sense." I had scarcely finished this 
observation, when the curtain rose, and the 
king came on in a violent passion. His wife 
had, it seems, refused his proffered tenderness, 
had spurned his royal embrace, and he seemed 
resolved not to survive her fierce disdain. 
After he had thus fretted, and the queen had 
fretted through the second act, the curtain was 
let down once more. 

"Now," says my companion, "you perceive 
the king to be a man of spirit ; he feels at every 
pore: one of your phlegmatic sons of clay 



LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD TO HIS FRIENDS 257 



would have given the queen her own way, and 
let her come to herself by degrees; but the king 
is for immediate tenderness, or instant death: 
death and tenderness are leading passions of 
every modern buskined hero; this moment 
they embrace, and the next stab, mixing dag- 
gers and kisses in every period." 

I was going to second his remarks, when 
my attention was engrossed by a new object ; 
a man came in balancing a straw upon his nose, 
and the audience were clapping their hands in 
all the raptures of applause. "To what pur- 
pose," cried I, "does this unmeaning figure 
make his appearance ? is he a part of the plot ? " 
— "Unmeaning do you call him?" replied my 
friend in black; "this is one of the most im- 
portant characters of the whole play; nothing 
pleases the people more than seeing a straw 
balanced: there is a good deal of meaning in 
the straw: there is something suited to every 
apprehension in the sight; and a fellow pos- 
sessed of talents like these is sure of making his 
fortune." 

The third act now began with an actor who 
came to inform us that he was the villain of the 
play, and intended to show strange things 
before all was over. He was joined by another 
who seemed as much disposed for mischief as 
he: their intrigues continued through this 
whole division. "If that be a villain," said I, 
"he must be a very stupid one to tell his secrets 
without being asked; such soliloquies of late 
are never admitted in China." 

The noise of clapping interrupted me once 
more; a child of six years old was learning 
to dance on the stage, which gave the ladies 
and mandarines infinite satisfaction. "I am 
sorry," said I, "to see the pretty creature so 
early learning so very bad a trade; dancing 
being, I presume, as contemptible here as in 
China." — "Quite the reverse," interrupted 
my companion; "dancing is a very reputable 
and genteel employment here; men have a 
greater chance for encouragement from the 
merit of their heels than their heads. One 
who jumps up and flourishes his toes three 
times before he comes to the ground, may have 
three hundred a year; he who flourishes them 
four times, gets four hundred; but he who 
arrives at five is inestimable, and may demand 
what salary he thinks proper. The female 
dancers, too, are valued for this sort of jumping 
and crossing; and it is a cant word amongst 
them, that she deserves most who shows high- 
est. But the fourth act is begun; let us be 
attentive." 



In the fourth act the queen finds her long lost 
child, now grown up into a youth of smart 
parts and great qualifications; wherefore she 
wisely considers that the crown will fit his head 
better than that of her husband, whom she 
knows to be a driveller. The king discovers 
her design, and here comes on the deep distress: 
he loves the queen, and he loves the kingdom ; 
he resolves, therefore, in order to possess both, 
that her son must die. The queen exclaims 
at his barbarity, is frantic with rage, and at 
length, overcome with sorrow, falls into a fit; 
upon which the curtain drops, and the act is 
concluded. 

"Observe the art of the poet," cries my com- 
panion. "When the queen can say no more, 
she falls into a fit. While thus her eyes are 
shut, while she is supported in the arms of 
Abigail, what horrors do we not fancy! We 
feel it in every nerve: take my word for it, 
that fits are the true aposiopesis of modern 
tragedy." 

The fifth act began, and a busy piece it was. 
Scenes shifting, trumpets sounding, mobs hal- 
looing, carpets spreading, guards bustling from 
one door to another; gods, demons, daggers, 
racks, and ratsbane. But whether the king 
was killed, or the queen was drowned, or the 
son was poisoned, I have absolutely forgotten. 

When the play was over, I could not avoid 
observing, that the persons of the drama ap- 
peared in as much distress in the first act as 
the last. "How is it possible," said I, "to 
sympathise with them through five long acts? 
Pity is but a short lived passion. I hate to hear 
an actor mouthing trifles. Neither starlings, 
strainings, nor attitudes, affect me, unless 
there be cause : after I have been once or twice 
deceived by those unmeaning alarms, my heart 
sleeps in peace, probably unaffected by the 
principal distress. There should be one great 
passion aimed at by the actor as well as the 
poet; all the rest should be subordinate, and 
only contribute to make that the greater; if 
the actor, therefore, exclaims upon every occa- 
sion, in the tones of despair, he attempts to 
move us too soon ; he anticipates the blow, he 
ceases to affect, though he gains our applause." 

I scarce perceived that the audience were 
almost all departed; wherefore, mixing with 
the crowd, my companion and I got into the 
street, where, essaying a hundred obstacles 
from coach-wheels and palanquin poles, like 
birds in their flight through the branches of a 
forest, after various turnings, we both at length 
got home in safety. Adieu. 



258 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



LETTER XXVI 

The Charactkk or iiii Mw in Black; witii 

Some Instances of his Inconsistent 

Conduct 

Though fond of many acquaintances, I de- 
sire an intimacy only with a few. The man 
in black, whom 1 have often mentioned, is one 
whose friendship I could wish to acquire, be- 
cause he possesses my esteem. His manners, 
it is true, are tinctured with some strange in- 
consistencies, and he may be justly termed a 
humourist in a nation of humourists. Though 
he is generous even to profusion, he affects to 
be thought a prodigy of parsimony and pru- 
dence; though his conversation be replete with 
the most sordid and selfish maxims, his heart 
is dilated with the most unbounded love. I 
have known him profess himself a man-hater, 
while his cheek was glowing with compassion; 
and, while his looks were softened into pity, 
I have heard him use the language of the most 
unbounded ill-nature. Some affect humanity 
and tenderness, others boast of having such 
dispositions from nature; but he is the only 
man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his 
natural benevolence. He takes as much pains 
to hide his feelings, as any hypocrite would 
to conceal his indifference; but on every un- 
guarded moment the mask drops off, and 
reveals him to the most superficial observer. 

In one of our late excursions into the country, 
happening to discourse upon the provision that 
was made for the poor in England, he seemed 
amazed how any of his countrymen could be 
so foolishly weak as to relieve occasional ob- 
jects of charity, when the laws had made such 
ample provision for their support. "In every 
parish-house," says he, "the poor are supplied 
with food, clothes, tire, and a bed to lie on; they 
want no more, I desire no more myself; yet 
still they seem discontented. I am surprised 
at the inactivity of our magistrates, in not tak- 
ing up such vagrants, who are only a weight 
upon the industrious; I am surprised that the 
people are found to relieve them, when they 
must be at the same time sensible that it, in 
some measure, encourages idleness, extrava- 
gance, and imposture. Were I to advise any 
man for whom I had the least regard, I would 
caution him by all means not to be imposed 
upon by their false pretences: let me assure 
you, Sir, they are impostors, every one of them, 
and rather merit a prison than relief." 

I le was proceeding in this strain, earnestly to 
dissuade me from an imprudence of which 1 



am seldom guilty, when an old man, who still 
had about him the remnants of tattered finery, 
implored our compassion. He assured us that 
he was no common beggar, but forced into the 
shameful profession, to support a dying wife, 
and live hungry children. Being prepossessed 
against such falsehoods, his story had not the 
least influence upon me ; but it was quite other- 
wise with the man in black; I could see it 
visibly operate upon his countenance, and 
effectually interrupt his harangue. I could 
easily perceive, that his heart burned to relieve 
the live starving children, but he seemed 
ashamed to discover his weakness to me. 
While he thus hesitated between compassion 
and pride, I pretended to look another way, 
and lie seized this opportunity of giving the 
poor petitioner a piece of silver, bidding him 
at the same time, in order that I should hear, 
go work for his bread, and not tease passen- 
gers with such impertinent falsehoods for the 
future. 

As he had fancied himself quite unpcrceived, 
he continued, as we proceeded, to rail against 
beggars with as much animosity as before; he 
threw in some episodes on his own amazing 
prudence and economy, with his profound skill 
in discovering impostors; he explained the 
manner in which he would deal with beggars 
were he a magistrate, hinted at enlarging some 
of the prisons for their reception, and told two 
stories of ladies that were robbed by beggar- 
men. He was beginning a third to the same 
purpose, when a sailor with a wooden leg once 
more crossed our walks, desiring our pity, and 
blessing our limbs. I was for going on without 
taking any notice, but my friend looking wish- 
fully upon the poor petitioner, bid me stop, 
and he would show me with how much ease he 
could at any time detect an impostor. 

He now, therefore, assumed a look of im- 
portance, and in an angry tone began tit ex- 
amine the sailor, demanding in what engage- 
ment he was thus disabled and rendered unlit 
for service. The sailor replied, in a tone as 
angrily as he, that he had been an officer on 
board a private ship of war, and that he had 
lost his leg abroad, in defence of those who did 
nothing at home. At this reply, all my friend's 
importance vanished in a moment ; he had not 
a single question more to ask; he now only 
studied what method he should take to relieve 
him unobserved. He had, however, no easy 
part to act, as he was obliged to preserve the 
appearance of ill-nature before me, and vet 
relieve himself by relieving the sailor. Cast- 



LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD TO HIS FRIENDS 259 



ing, therefore, a furious look upon some 
bundles of chips which the fellow carried in a 
string at his back, my friend demanded how 
he sold his matches; but, not waiting for a 
reply, desired, in a surly tone, to have a 
shilling's worth. The sailor seemed at first 
surprised at his demand, but soon recollected 
himself, and presenting his whole bundle, 
"Here, master," says he, "take all my cargo, 
and a blessing into the bargain." 

It is impossible to describe with what an air 
of triumph my friend marched off with his new 
purchase: he assured me, that he was firmly 
of opinion that those fellows must have stolen 
their goods, who could thus afford to sell them 
for half value. He informed me of several dif- 
ferent uses to which those chips might be ap- 
plied; he expatiated largely upon the savings 
that would result from lighting candles with 
a match, instead of thrusting them into the 
fire. He averred, that he would as soon have 
parted with a looth as his money to those vaga- 
bonds, unless for some valuable consideration. 
I cannot tell how long this panegyric upon 
frugality and matches might have continued, 
had not his attention been called off by another 
object more distressful than either of the 
former. A woman in rags, with one child 
in her arms, and another on her back, was 
attempting to sing ballads, but with such a 
mournful voice, that it was difficult to deter- 
mine whether she was singing or crying. A 
wretch, who in the deepest distress still aimed 
at good-humour, was an object my friend 
was by no means capable of withstanding: his 
vivacity and his discourse were instantly inter- 
rupted; upon this occasion, his very dissimu- 
lation had forsaken him. Even in my presence 
he immediately applied his hands to his pockets, 
in order to relieve her; but guess his confusion 
when he found he had already given away all 
the money he carried about him to former 
objects. The misery painted in the woman's 
visage was not half so strongly expressed as 
the agony in his. He continued to search for 
some time, but to no purpose, till, at length 
recollecting himself, with a face of ineffable 
good-nature, as he had no money, he put into 
her hands his shilling's worth of matches. 

LETTER XXVII 

The History of the Man in Black 

As there appeared something reluctantly 
good in the character of my companion, I must 
own it surprised me what could be his motives 



for thus concealing virtues which others take 
such pains to display. I was unable to repress 
my desire of knowing the history of a man who 
thus seemed to act under continual restraint, 
and whose benevolence was rather the effect 
of appetite than reason. 

It was not, however, till after repeated so- 
licitations he thought proper to gratify my 
curiosity. "If you are fond," says he, "of 
hearing hairbreadth 'scapes, my history must 
certainly please; for I have been for twenty 
years upon the very verge of starving, without 
ever being starved. 

"My father, the younger son of a good family, 
was possessed of a small living in the church. 
His education was above his fortune, and his 
generosity greater than his education. Poor 
as he was, he had his flatterers still poorer than 
himself; for every dinner he gave them, they 
returned an equivalent in praise; and this 
was all he wanted. The same ambition that 
actuates a monarch at the head of an army, 
influenced my father at the head of his table. 
He told the story of the ivy-tree, and that was 
laughed at; he repeated the jest of the two 
scholars and one pair of breeches, and the com- 
pany laughed at that; but the story of Taffy 
in the sedan-chair, was sure to set the table in 
a roar. Thus his pleasure increased in pro- 
portion to the pleasure he gave; he loved all 
the world, and he fancied all the world loved 
him. 

"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to 
the very extent of it; he had no intentions of 
leaving his children money, for that was dross; 
he was resolved they should have learning; for 
learning, he used to observe, was better than 
silver or gold. For this purpose, he undertook 
to instruct us himself; and took as much pains 
to form our morals, as to improve our under- 
standing. We were told, that universal be- 
nevolence was what first cemented society; 
we were taught to consider all the wants of 
mankind as our own; to regard the 'human 
face divine' with affection and esteem; he 
wound us up to be mere machines of pity, and 
rendered us incapable of withstanding the 
slightest impulse made either by real or fictitious 
distress : in a word, we were perfectly instructed 
in the art of giving away thousands, before we 
were taught the more necessary qualifications 
of getting a farthing. 

"I cannot avoid imagining, that thus refined 
by his lessons out of all my suspicion, and 
divested of even all the little cunning which 
nature had given me, I resembled, upon my 



>6o 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



first entrance into the busy and insidious 
world, our of those gladiators who were ex 
posed without armour in the amphitheatre at 
Rome. Mv father, however, who had only 
seen the world on one side, seemed to triumph 
in my superior discernment; though my whole 
stock of wisdom consisted in being able to 
talk like himself upon subjects that once were 
useful, because they were then topics o\ the 

busy world, bul that now were utterly useless, 
because Connected with the busy world no 
longer. 

"The first opportunity lie had of finding his 
expectations disappointed, was in the very 
middling figure I made in the university, he 
had flattered himself that he should soon see 
me rising into the foremost rank in literary 

reputation, but was mortified to find me 

utterly unnoticed and unknown. His dis- 
appointment might have been partly ascribed 
to his having overrated my talents, and partly 
to my dislike of mathematical reasonings, at a 
time when my imagination and memory, yet 
unsatisfied, were more eager after new objects, 
than desirous of reasoning upon those 1 knew. 
This did not, however, please mv tutor, who 
observed, indeed, that I was a little dull; but 
at the same time allowed, that 1 seemed to be 
very good natured, and had no harm in me. 

"After I had resided at college seven years, 
mv father died, and left me his blessing. 
Thus shoved from shore without ill-nature to 
protect, or cunning to guide, or proper stores 
to subsist me in so dangerous a voyage, 1 was 
obliged to embark in the wide world at tvventv- 
two. Hut, in order to settle in life, my friends 
advised, (for they always advise when they 
begin to despise us.) they advised me, 1 say, 
to go into orders. 

" l'o be obliged to wear a long wig, when 
I liked a short one, or a black eoat, when 1 
generally dressed in brown, I thought was 
such a restraint upon mv liberty, that 1 ab- 
solutely rejected the proposal. A priest in 

England is not the same mortified creature 

with a bonze in China. With us, not he that 
fasts best, but eats best, is reckoned the best 
liver; yet I rejected a life of luxury, indo- 
lence, ami ease, from no other consideration 
but that boyish one o\ dress. So that un- 
friends were now perfectly satisfied I was un- 
done; and yet they thought it a pity for one 
who had not the least harm in him, and was 
so very good natured. 

"Poverty naturally begets dependence, and 
1 was admitted as Batterer to a great man. 



At first, 1 was surprised that the situation of 

a flatterer at a great man's table could be 
thought disagreeable: there was no great 
trouble in listening attentively when his lord- 
ship spoke, and laughing when he looked 
round for applause. This even good manners 
might have obliged me to perform. 1 found, 
however, too soon, that his lordship was a 
greater dunee than myself; and from that 
very moment (lattery was at an end. I now 
rather aimed at setting him right, than at 
receiving his absurdities with submission. To 
flatter those we do not know is an easy task; 
but to flatter our intimate acquaintances, all 
whose foibles are strongly in OUT eye, is drudgery 
insupportable. Every time 1 now opened mv 
lips in praise, my falsehood went to mv con- 
science: his lordship soon perceived me to be 
very unfit for service; 1 was therefore dis- 
charged; my patron at the same time being 
graciously pleased to observe, that he believed 
1 was tolerably good-natured, anil not the 
least harm in me. 

"Disappointed in ambition, I had recourse 
to love. A young lady, who lived with her 
aunt, and was possessed of a pretty fortune in 
her own disposal, had given me, as 1 fancied, 
some reason to expect success. The symp- 
toms bv which 1 was guided were striking. 
She had always laughed with me at her awk- 
ward acquaintance, ami at her aunt among 
the number; she always observed, that a 
man of sense would make a belter husband 
than a fool, and 1 as constantly applied the 
observation in my own favour. She continu- 
ally talked, in my company, of friendship and 
the beauties of the mind, and spoke of Mr. 
Shrimp my rival's high-heeled shoes with 
detestation. These were circumstances which 
1 thought strongly in my favour; so, after re- 
solving, and re-resolving, 1 had courage enough 
to tell her my mind. Miss heard my proposal 
with serenity, seeming at the same time to 
Study the figures of her fan. Out at last it 
came: There was but one small objection to 
complete our happiness, which was no more 
than — that she was married three months 
before to Mr. Shrimp, with high-heeled shoes! 
By way oi consolation, however, she observed, 
that, though 1 was disappointed in her, my 
addresses to her aunt would probably kindle 
her into sensibility; as the old lady always 
allowed me to be very good-natured, and not 
to have the least share of harm in me. 

"Yet still I had friends, numerous friends, 
and to them 1 was resolved to apply. O 



LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD TO HIS FRIENDS 261 



friendship! thou fond soother of the human 
breast, to thee the wretched seek for succour; 
on thee the care-tired son of misery fondly 
relies; from thy kind assistance the unfor- 
tunate always hopes relief, and may be ever 
sure of — disappointment! My first applica- 
tion was to a city scrivener, who had fre- 
quently offered to lend me money, when he 
knew I did not want it. I informed him, that 
now was the time to put his friendship to the 
test; that I wanted to borrow a couple of 
hundreds for a certain occasion, and was re- 
solved to take it up from him. 'And pray, 
Sir,' cried my friend, 'do you want all this 
money ? ' — ' Indeed, I never wanted it more,' 
returned I. 'I am sorry for that,' cries the 
scrivener, 'with all my heart; for they who 
want money when they come to borrow, will 
always want money when they should come to 

"From him I flew with indignation, to one 
of the best friends I had in the world, and 
made the same request. 'Indeed, Mr. Dry- 
bone,' cries my friend, 'I always thought it 
would come to this. You know, Sir, I would 
not advise you but for your own good; but 
your conduct has hitherto been ridiculous in 
the highest degree, and some of your acquaint- 
ance always thought you a very silly fellow. 
Let me see — you want two hundred pounds. 
Do you only want two hundred, Sir, exactly?' 
— 'To confess a truth,' returned I, T shall 
want three hundred; but then I have another 
friend, from whom I can borrow the rest.' — 
'Why, then,' replied my friend, 'if you would 
take my advice (and you know I should not 
presume to advise you but for your own good,) 
I would recommend it to you to borrow the 
whole sum from that other friend, and then 
one note will serve for all, you know.' 

"Poverty now began to come fast upon me; 
yet instead of growing more provident or 
cautious as I grew poor, I became every day 
more indolent and simple. A friend was 
arrested for fifty pounds; I was unable to 
extricate him, except by becoming his bail. 
When at liberty, he fled from his creditors, 
and left me to take his place. In prison I 
expected greater satisfactions than I had en- 
joyed at large. I hoped to converse with 
men in this new world, simple and believing 
like myself; but I found them as cunning 
and as cautious as those in the world I had 
left behind. They spunged up my money 
while it lasted, borrowed my coals and never 
paid for them, and cheated me when I played 



at cribbage. All this was done because they 
believed me to be very good-natured, and 
knew that I had no harm in me. 

"Upon my first entrance into this mansion, 
which is to some the abode of despair, I felt 
no sensations different from those I experi- 
enced abroad. I was now on one side the 
door, and those who were unconfined were on 
the other: this was all the difference between 
us. At first, indeed, 1 felt some uneasiness, 
in considering how I should be able to pro- 
vide this week for the wants of the week en- 
suing; but, after some time, if I found myself 
sure of eating one day, I never troubled my 
head how I was to be supplied another. I 
seized every precarious meal with the utmost 
good-humour; indulged no rants of spleen at 
my situation; never called down heaven and 
all the stars to behold me dining upon a half- 
penny worth of radishes; my very companions 
were taught to believe that I liked salad better 
than mutton. I contented myself with think- 
ing, that all my life I should either eat white 
bread or brown; considered that all that 
happened was best; laughed when I was not 
in pain, took the world as it went, and read 
Tacitus often, for want of more books and 
company. 

"How long I might have continued in this 
torpid state of simplicity I cannot tell, had I 
not been roused by seeing an old acquaintance, 
whom I knew to be a prudent blockhead, 
preferred to a place in the government. I 
now found that I had pursued a wrong track, 
and that the true way of being able to relieve 
others, was first to aim at independence my- 
self. My immediate care, therefore, was to 
leave my present habitation, and make an 
entire reformation in my conduct and be- 
haviour. For a free, open, undesigning de- 
portment, I put on that of closeness, prudence, 
and economy. One of the most heroic actions 
I ever performed, and for which I shall praise 
myself as long as I live, was the refusing half- 
a-crown to an old acquaintance, at the time 
when he wanted it, and I had it to spare: for 
this alone I deserve to be decreed an ovation. 
"I now therefore pursued a course of un- 
interrupted frugality, seldom wanted a dinner, 
and was consequently invited to twenty. I 
soon began to get the character of a saving 
hunks that had money, and insensibly grew 
into esteem. Neighbours have asked my advice 
in the disposal of their daughters; and I have 
always taken care not to give any. 1 have 
contracted a friendship with an alderman, 



262 



Ol.IYI.k (iOLDSMITII 



only by observing, thai if we take a farthing 
from a thousand pounds, it will be a thousand 
pounds no longer. I have turn invited to a 
pawnbroker's table, by pretending to hate 
gravy; and am now actually upon treaty of 
marriage with a rich widow, for only having 
observed thai the bread was rising, if ever 
1 am asked a question, whether 1 know it or 
not, instead of answering, 1 only smile and 
look wise. If a charity is proposed, 1 go 
about with the hat, but put nothing in myself. 

If a wretch solicits my pity, 1 observe thai the 
world is filled with impostors, and take a 
certain method of not being deceived, by never 

relieving. In short, 1 now find the truest 

way of finding esteem, even from the indigent, 
is — to give away nothing, and thus have 
much in our power to give." 

LETTER XXVIII 

On the Great Number of Old Maids and 

Bachelors in London Some of 

THE Causes 

Lately, in company with my friend in 

Mark, whose conversation is now both my 
amusement and instruction, 1 could not avoid 
observing the great numbers of old bachelors 
and maiden ladies with which this city seems 
to be overrun. "Sure, marriage," said 1, "is 
not sufficiently encouraged, or we should never 
behold SUCh erowds of battered beaux and 

decayed coquettes, still attempting to drive a 

trade they have been so long unlit for, and 
swarming upon the gaiety of the age. 1 be- 
hold an old bachelor in the most contemptible 
light, as an animal that lives upon the common 
stoek without contributing his share: he is a 
beast of prey, and the laws should make use 
of as many stratagems, and as much force, to 
drive the reluctant savage into the toils, as 
the Indians when they hunt the rhinoceros. 
The mob should be permitted to halloo after 
him, boys might play tricks on him with im- 
punity, every well bred company should laugh 
at him; and if, when turned of sixty, he 
offered to make love, his mistress might spit 
in his face, or, what would be perhaps a 
greater punishment, should fairly grant the 
favour. 

"As for old maids," continued 1, "they 
should not be treated with so mueh severity, 
because 1 suppose none would be so if thev 
Could. No lady in her senses would ehoose 
to make a subordinate figure at christenings 
or lyings in, when she might be the principal 



herself; nor CUrry favour with a sister in law, 
when she might command a husband; nor 
toil in preparing custards, when she might lie 

a lu. I, and give directions how they ought to 
be made; nor stifle all her sensations in 
demure formality, when she might, with mat- 
rimonial freedom, shake her acquaintance by 
the hand, and wink at a double entendre. No 
lady COUld be so very silly as to live single, if 
she could help it. 1 consider an unmarried 
lady, declining into the vale of years, as one 
of those charming countries bordering on 
China, that lies waste for want of proper in- 
habitants. We are not to accuse the coun- 
try, but the ignorance of its neighbours, 
who are insensible o\ its beauties, though at 
liberty to enter and cultivate the soil." 

"Indeed, Sir," replied my companion, "you 

are very little acquainted with the English 
ladies, to think thev are old maids against 
their will. I dare venture to affirm, that you 
can hardly select one of them all, but has had 
frequent offers of marriage, which either pride 
or avarice has not made her reject. Instead 
oi thinking it a disgrace, thev take every occa- 
sion to boast of their former cruelty; a soldier 
does not exult more when he counts over the 
wounds he has received, than a female veteran 
when she relates the wounds she has formerly 
given: exhaustless when she begins a narra- 
tive of the former death-dealing power of her 

eves, she tells of the knight in gold lace, who 
died with a single frown, and never rose again 
till he was married to his maid; of the 
squire who, being cruelly denied, in a rage 
flew to the window, and lifting up the sash, 
threw himself, in an agony — into his arm- 
chair; of the parson, who, crossed in love, 
resolutely swallowed opium, which banished 
the stings of despised love by — making him 
sleep. In short, she talks over her former 
losses with pleasure, ami, like some trades- 
men, finds consolation in the many bank- 
ruptcies she has suffered. 

"For this reason, whenever 1 see a super- 
annuated beauty still unmarried, 1 tacitly 
accuse her either of pride, avarice, coquetry, 
or affectation, There's Miss Jenny Tinder- 
box; I once remember her to have had some 
beauty, and a moderate fortune. Her elder 
sister happened to marry a man of quality, 
and this seemed as a statute of virginity against 
poor Jane. Because there was one lucky hit 
in the family, she was resolved not to dis- 
grace it by introducing a tradesman; thus, 
rejecting her equals, and neglected or de- 



LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD TO HIS FRIENDS 263 



spised by her superiors, she now acts in the 
capacity of tutoress to her sister's children, 
and undergoes the drudgery of three servants 
without receiving the wages of one. 

"Miss Squeeze was a pawnbroker's daugh- 
ter; her father had early taught her that 
money was a very good thing, and left her a 
moderate fortune at his death. She was so 
perfectly sensible of the value of what she had 
got, that she was resolved never to part with 
a farthing without an equality on the part of 
her suitor; she thus refused several offers 
made her by people who wanted to belter 
themselves, as the saying is, and grew old 
and ill-natured, without ever considering that 
she should have made an abatement in her 
pretensions, from her face being pale, and 
marked with the small-pox. 

"Lady Betty Tempest, on the contrary, had 
beauty, with fortune and family. But, fond 
of conquest, she passed from triumph to 
triumph: she had read plays and romances, 
and there had learned, that a plain man of 
common sense was no better than a fool. 
Such she refused, and sighed only for the gay, 
giddy, inconstant, and thoughtless. After she 
had thus rejected hundreds who liked her, and 
sighed for hundreds who despised her, she 
found herself insensibly deserted. At present 
she is company only for her aunts and cousins, 
and sometimes makes one in a country-dance, 
with only one of the chairs for a partner, 
casts off round a joint-stool, and sets to a 
corner cupboard. In a word, she is treated 
with civil contempt from every quarter, and 
placed, like a piece of old-fashioned lumber, 
merely to fill up a corner. 

"But Sophronia, the sagacious Sophronia! 
how shall 1 mention her? She was taught to 
love Greek, and hate the men from her very 
infancy. She has rejected fine gentlemen be- 
cause they were not pedants, and pedants be- 
cause they were not fine gentlemen; her ex- 
quisite sensibility has taught her to discover 
every fault in every lover, and her indexible 
justice has prevented her pardoning them: 
thus she rejected several offers, till the wrinkles 
of age had overtaken her; and now, without 
one good feature in her face, she talks inces- 
santly of the beauties of the mind." — Farewell. 

LETTER XXIX 

A Description of a Club of Authors 

Were we to estimate the learning of the 
English by the number of books that are 



every day published among them, perhaps no 
country, not even China itself, could equal 
them in this particular. I have reckoned not 
less than twenty-three new books published 
in one day, which, upon computation, makes 
eight thousand three hundred and ninety-five 
in one year. Most of these are not confined 
to one single science, but embrace the whole 
circle. History, politics, poetry, mathematics, 
metaphysics, and the philosophy of nature, 
are all comprised in a manual not larger than 
that in which our children are taught the 
letters. If, then, we suppose the learned of 
England to read but an eighth part of the 
works which daily come from the press (and 
surely none can pretend to learning upon less 
easy terms), at this rate every scholar will 
read a thousand books in one year. From 
such a calculation, you may conjecture what 
an amazing fund of literature a man must be 
possessed of, who thus reads three new books 
every day, not one of which but contains all 
the good things that ever were said or written. 

And yet I know not how it happens, but the 
English are not, in reality, so learned as would 
seem from this calculation. We meet but few 
who know all arts and sciences to perfection; 
whether it is that the generality are incapa- 
ble of such extensive knowledge, or that the 
authors of those books are not adequate in- 
structors. In China, the Emperor himself 
takes cognisance of all the doctors in the 
kingdom who profess authorship. In Eng- 
land, every man may be an author, that can 
write; for they have by law a liberty, not 
only of saying what they please, but of being 
also as dull as they please. 

Yesterday, I testified my surprise, to the 
man in black, where writers could be found 
in sufficient number to throw off the books I 
daily saw crowding from the press. I at first 
imagined that their learned seminaries might 
take this method of instructing the world. 
But to obviate this objection, my companion 
assured me, that the doctors of colleges never 
wrote, and that some of them had actually 
forgot their reading; "but if you desire," con- 
tinued he, "to see a collection of authors, I 
fancy I can introduce you this evening to a 
club, which assembles every Saturday at seven, 
at the sign of The Broom, near Islington, to 
talk over the business of the last, and the 
entertainment of the week ensuing." I ac- 
cepted his invitation ; we walked together, and 
entered the house some time before the usual 
hour for the company assembling. 



264 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



Mv friend took this opportunity of letting 
me into the characters of the principal mem- 
bers of the dub, not even the host excepted, 

who, it Seems, was once an author himself, 

but preferred by a bookseller to this situation 
as a reward for his former services. 

"The first person," said he, "of OUT Society, 
is Doctor Nonentity, a metaphysician. Most 
people think him a profound scholar; but, as 
he seldom speaks, 1 cannot he positive in that 
particular; he generally spreads himself he- 
fore the tire, sucks his pipe, talks little, drinks 
much, and is reckoned very good company. 
I'm told he writes indexes to perfection: he 
makes essays on the origin of evil, philosophical 
inquiries upon any subject, and draws up an 
answer io any hook upon twenty-four hours' 
warning. You may distinguish him from the 
rest of the company by his long gray wig, and 
the blue handkerchief round his neck. 

"The next to him in merit ami esteem is 
Tim Syllabub, a droll creature: he sometimes 
shines as a star of the first magnitude among 
the choice spirits of the age: he is reckoned 
equally excellent at a rebus, a riddle, a bawdy 
song, and a hymn for the Tabernacle. You 
will know him by his shabby finery, his pow- 
dered wig, dirty shirt, ami broken silk stockings. 

"After him succeeds Mr. Tibs, a very useful 
hand: he writes receipts for the bite of a 
mad dog, and throws off an Eastern tale to 
perfection; he understands the business of an 
author as well as any man; for no bookseller 
alive can cheat him. You may distinguish 
him by the peculiar clumsiness of his figure, 
and tile coarseness of his coat; however, 
though it be coarse (as he frequently tells the 
company), he has paid for it. 

"l.awver Squint is the politician of the 
society: he makes speeches for Parliament, 
writes addresses to his fellow -subjects, and 
letters to noble commanders; he gives the 
history of every new play, and finds season- 
able thoughts u]>on every occasion." My com- 
panion was proceeding in his description, 
when the host came running in, with terror 
on his countenance, to tell us that the door 
was beset with bailiffs. "If that be the case, 
then." says mv companion, "we had as good 
be going; for 1 am positive we shall not see 
one of the company this night." Wherefore, 
disappointed, we were both obliged to return 
home — he to enjoy the oddities which com- 
pose his character alone, and 1 to write as 
usual to my friend the occurrences of the 
daw Adieu. 



LETTER XXX 
The Proceedings of the Club of Authors 

By my last advices from Moscow, 1 find the 
caravan has not yet departed for China: I 
still continue to write, expecting that you may 
receive a large number of letters at once. In 
them you will find rather a minute detail of 
English peculiarities, than a general picture 
of their maimers or disposition. Happy it 
were for mankind, if all travellers would thus, 
instead of characterising a people in general 
terms, lead us into a detail of those minute 
circumstances which first influenced their 
opinion. The genius oi a country should be 
investigated with a kind of experimental in- 
quiry: by this means, we should have more 
precise and just notions of foreign nations, 
and detect travellers themselves when they 
happened to form wrong conclusions. 

My friend and 1 repeated our visit to the 
club of authors; where, upon our entrance, 
we found the members all assembled, and en- 
gaged in a loud debate. 

The poet, in shabby finery, holding a manu- 
script in his hand, was earnestly endeavouring 
to persuade the company to hear him read the 
first book oi an heroic poem, which he had 
composed the day before. Bui against this 
all the members very warmly objected. They 
knew no reason why any member of the club 
should be indulged with a particular hearing, 
when manv of them hail published whole 
volumes which had never been looked into. 
They insisted that the law should be observed, 
where reading in company was expressly 
noticed. It was in vain that the plaintiff 
pleaded the peculiar merit of his piece; he 
spoke to an assembly insensible to all his 
remonstrances: the book of laws was opened, 
and read by the secretary, where it was ex- 
pressly enacted, "That whatsoever poet, 
speech-maker, critic, or historian, should pre- 
sume to engage the company by reading his 
own works, he was to lay down sixpence pre- 
vious to opening the manuscript, and should 
be charged one shilling an hour while he con- 
tinued reading: the said shilling to be equally 
distributed among the company, as a recom- 
pense for their trouble." 

Our poet seemed at first to shrink at the 
penalty, hesitating for some time whether he 
should deposit the tine, or shut up the poem; 
but, looking round, and perceiving two strangers 
in the room, his love of fame outweighed his 






LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD TO HIS FRIENDS 265 



prudence, and, laying down the sum by law 
established, he insisted on his prerogative. 

A profound silence ensuing, he began by 
explaining his design. "Gentlemen," says 
he, "the present piece is not one of your com- 
mon epic poems, which come from the press 
like paper-kites in summer: there are none of 
your Turnuses or Didos in it; it is an heroical 
description of nature. I only beg you'll en- 
deavour to make your souls unison with mine, 
and hear with the same enthusiasm with which 
I have written. The poem begins with the 
description of an author's bed-chamber: the 
picture was sketched in my own apartment ; 
for you must know, gentlemen, that I am 
myself the hero." Then putting himself into 
the attitude of an orator, with all the emphasis 
of voice and action, he proceeded: 

"Where the Red Lion, flaring o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that ran pay; 
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black cham- 
pagne, 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane : 
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
The Muse found Scroggen stretched beneath a rug. 
A window, patched with paper, Lent a. ray, 
That dimly showed tin- state in which he lay ; 
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread ; 
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread — 
The Royal Game of Goose was there in view 
And the Twelve Rules the Royal Martyr drew ; 
The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place," 
And brave Prince William showed his lamp-black 

face. 
The morn was cold : he views with keen desire 
The rusty grate, unconscious of a fire : 
With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scored, 
And five-cracked teacups dressed the chimney board ; 
A night-cap decked his brows instead of bay, 
A cap by night — a stocking all the day ! " 

With this last line he seemed so much elated, 
that he was unable to proceed. "There, 
gentlemen," cries he, "there is a description 
for you; Rabelais's bed-chamber is but a 
fool to it: 

' A cap by night — a stocking all the day ! ' 

There is sound, and sense, and truth, and 
nature in the trifling compass of ten little 
syllables." 

1 le was too much employed in self-admira- 
tion to observe the company; who, by nods, 
winks, shrugs, and stifled laughter, test i lied 
every mark of contempt. He turned severally 
to each for their opinion, and found all, how- 



ever, ready to applaud. One swore it was 
inimitable; another said it was damned fine; 
and a third cried out in a rapture, "Carissimo/" 
At last, addressing himself to the president, 
"And pray, Mr. Squint," says he, "let us 
have your opinion." — "Mine!" answered 
the president (taking the manuscript out of 
the author's hand); "may this glass suffocate 
me, but I think it equal to anything I have 
seen; and I fancy" (continued he, doubling 
up the poem and forcing it into the author's 
pocket) "that you will get great honour when 
it comes out; so I shall beg leave to put it in. 
We will not intrude upon your good-nature, in 
desiring to hear more of it at present ; ex 
ungue II erculem, we are satisfied, perfectly 
satisfied." The author made two or three 
attempts to pull it out a second time, and the 
president made as many to prevent him. 
Thus, though with reluctance, he was at last 
obliged to sit down, contented with the com- 
mendations for which he had paid. 

When this tempest of poetry and praise was 
blown over, one of the company changed the 
subject, by wondering how any man could be 
so dull as to write poetry at present, since 
prose itself would hardly pay. "Would you 
think it, gentlemen," continued he, "I have 
actually written, last week, sixteen prayers, 
twelve bawdy jests, and three sermons, all at 
the rate of sixpence a-piecc; and, what is still 
more extraordinary, the bookseller has lost by 
the bargain. Such sermons would once have 
gained me a prebend's stall; but now, alas! 
we have neither piety, taste, nor humour 
among us ! Positively, if this season does not 
turn out better than it has begun, unless the 
ministry commit some blunders to furnish us 
with a new topic of abuse, I shall resume my 
old business of working at the press, instead 
of finding it employment." 

The whole club seemed to join in condemn- 
ing the season, as one of the worst that had 
come for some time: a gentleman particularly 
observed that the nobility were never known 
to subscribe worse than at present. "I know 
not how it happens," said he, "though I follow 
them up as close as possible, yet I can hardly 
get a single subscription in a week. The 
houses of the great are as inaccessible as a 
frontier garrison at midnight. I never see a 
nobleman's door half opened, that some surly 
poller or footman does not stand full in the 
breach. I was yesterday to wait with a sub 
script ion proposal upon my Lord Squash, the 
Creolian. I had posted myself at his door 



..(,(, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



the \\ hole morning, and, just as he was getting 
into his coach, thrust my proposal snug into 
his hand, folded up in the form of a letter 
from myself. He jusl glanced at the super- 
scription, ami not knowing the hand, con- 
signed it to his valet de -< hainhre ; this respect- 
able personage treated it as his master, and 
put it into the hands ni the porter; the porter 
grasped my proposal frowning; and, measur 
in!', my figure from top to tot', put it back into 
my own hands unopened." 

" I'o the devil I pitch all the nobility!" 

cries a little man, in a peculiar accent ; " I am 

sine they have of late used nie most seuivilv. 

You must know, gentlemen, some time ago, 

Upon the arrival of a certain noble duke from 
his travels, I sat myself down, and vamped up 

a fine flaunting poetical panegyric, which I 

had written in sueh a strain, that I fancied it 
would have even wheedled milk from a mouse. 
In this 1 represented the whole kingdom Wel- 
coming his grace to his native soil, not for- 
getting the loss France and Italy would sustain 
in their arts by his departure. 1 expected to 
touch for a bank bill al least; so, folding up 
my verses in gill paper, 1 gave my last half 

Crown to a genteel servant to he the hearer. 
Mv letter was safely conveyed to his grace, 
and tin' servant, after four hours' absence, 
during which time 1 led the life oi a fiend, 
returned with a letter four times as big as mine. 

Guess myecstacy at the prospect oi so tine a 

return. 1 eagerly took the packet into my 

hands, that trembled to receive it. I kept it 

some time unopened before me, brooding over 
the expected treasure it contained; when open- 
ing it, as 1 hope to he saved, gentlemen, 
his grace had sent me iii payment for my 
poem, no hank hills, hut six copies of verses, 
each longer than mine, addressed to him upon 
the same occasion." 
•• \ nobleman," cries a member, who had 

hitherto been silent, "is created as much for 
the confusion of us authors, as the catch pole. 
I'll tell you a story, gentlemen, which is as 
true as that this pipe is made oi clay: When 
1 was delivered oi my firsl hook, l owed my 

tailor for a suit of clothes; hut that is nothing 
new, you know, and m,n he any man's case 
as well as mine. Well, owing him for a suit 
of clothes, and hearing that my hook took very 
well, he sent for his money and insisted upon 

being paid immediately. Though 1 was at 

that time rich in fame for mv hook ran like 
wild ttri' yet 1 was verv short in money, 

and, being unable to satisfy his demand, pru- 



dently resolved to keep mv chamber, pre 
ferring a prison of my own choosing al home, 
to one of my tailor's choosing abroad. In 

vain the bailiffs used all their arts to decoy 

me from my citadel; in \ain they sent to let 
me know that a gentleman wanted to speak 
with me at the next tavern; in vain thev came 
with an urgent message from my aunt in the 
country; in vain 1 was told that a particular 

friend was at the point of death, and desired 

to take his last farewell: I was deaf, insen- 
sible, rock, adamant; the bailiffs could make 
no impression on mv hard heart, for 1 effectu- 
ally kept my liberty by never stirring out of the 

room. 

"This was very well for a fortnight; when 
one morning I received a most splendid nies 

sage from the Earl of Doomsday, importing, 

that he had read my hook, and was in raptures 
with every line of it; he impatiently longed 
to see the author, and had some designs which 
might turn out greatly to mv advantage. 1 

paused upon the contents oi this message, and 

found there could he no deceit, for the card 
was gill al the edges, and the bearer, 1 was 
told, had ipiite the looks oi a gentleman. 

Witness, ve powers, how mv heart triumphed 
at my own importance I 1 saw a long per 
spective oi felicity before me; I applauded 
the taste of the times which never saw genius 
forsaken: 1 had prepared a set introductory 

speech for the occasion; five glaring compli- 
ments for his lordship, and two more modest 

for myself. The next morning, therefore, in 
order to he punctual to my appointment, 1 

took coach, and ordered the fellow to drive 
to the street and house mentioned in his lord 
ship's address. 1 had the precaution to pull 
Up the windows as 1 went along, to keep off 
the busy part of mankind, and, big with ex 
pectation, fancied the coach never went fast 
enough. At length, however, the wished for 
moment <.^i its stopping arrived: this for some 
time 1 impatiently expected, and letting down 
the window in a transport, in order to take a 

previous view of his lordship's magnificent 

palace and situation, 1 found poison to my 
sight I I found myself not in an elegant 
street, hut a paltry lane; not at a nobleman's 
door, but the door of a spunging house : 1 
found the coachman had all this while been 
just driving me to jail ; audi saw the bailiff, 
with a devil's face, coming out to secure me." 
To a philosopher, no circumstance, how- 
ever trilling, is too minute; he finds instruc- 
tion and entertainment in occurrences, which 



EDMUND BURKE 



267 



are passed over by the rest of mankind, as low, 
trite, and indifferent; it is from the number of 
these particulars, which to many appear in- 
significant, that he is at last enabled to form 
general conclusions; this, therefore, must be 
my excuse for sending so far as China, accounts 
of manners and follies, which, though minute 
in their own nature, serve more truly to char- 
acterise this people, than histories of their 
public treaties, courts, ministers, negotiations, 
and ambassadors. Adieu. 



EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797) 

From SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF 
ARCOT'S DEBTS 

The great fortunes made in India, in the 
beginnings of conquest, naturally excited an 
emulation in all the parts and through the whole 
succession of the Company's service. But in 
the Company it gave rise to other sentiments. 
They did not find the new channels of acquisi- 
tion flow with equal riches to them. On the 
contrary, the high Hood tide of private emolu- 
ment was generally in the lowest ebb of their 
affairs. They began also to fear that the for- 
tune of war might take away what the fortune 
of war had given. Wars were accordingly 
discouraged by repeated injunctions and 
menaces: and that the servants might not be 
bribed into them by the native princes, they 
were strictly forbidden to take any money 
whatsoever from their hands. But vehement 
passion is ingenious in resources. The Com- 
pany's servants were not only stimulated, but 
better instructed by the prohibition. They 
soon fell upon a contrivance which answered 
their purposes far better than the methods which 
were forbidden: though in this also they vio- 
lated an ancient, but they thought, an ab- 
rogated order. They reversed their proceed- 
ings. Instead of receiving presents, they made 
loans. Instead of carrying on wars in their 
own name, they contrived an authority, at once 
irresistible and irresponsible, in whose name 
they might ravage at pleasure; and being thus 
freed from all restraint, they indulged them- 
selves in the most extravagant speculations of 
plunder. The cabal of creditors who have been 
the object of the late bountiful grant from his 
Majesty's ministers, in order to possess them- 
selves, under the name of creditors and assign- 
ees, of every country in India, as fast as it 
should be conquered, inspired into the mind of 
the Nabob of Arcot (then a dependent on the 



Company of the humblest order) a scheme of 
the most wild and desperate ambition that I 
believe ever was admitted into the thoughts of 
a man so situated. First, they persuaded him 
to consider himself as a principal member in 
the political system of Europe. In the next 
place, they held out to him, and he readily 
imbibed, the idea of the general empire of 
Ilindostan. As a preliminary to this under- 
taking, they prevailed on him to propose a 
tripartite division of that vast country: one 
part to the Company; another to the Mahrat- 
tas; and the third to himself. To himself he 
reserved all the southern part of the great 
peninsula, comprehended under the general 
name of the Deccan. 

On this scheme of their servants, the Com- 
pany was to appear in the Carnatic in no other 
light than as a contractor for the provision of 
armies, and the hire of mercenaries for his use 
and under his direction. This disposition was 
to be secured by the Nabob's putting himself 
under the guaranty of France, and, by the 
means of that rival nation, preventing the 
English forever from assuming an equality, 
much less a superiority, in the Carnatic. In 
pursuance of this treasonable project, (treason- 
able on the part of the English,) they extin- 
guished the Company as a sovereign power in 
that part of India; they withdrew the Com- 
pany's garrisons out of all the forts and strong- 
holds of the Carnatic; they declined to receive 
the ambassadors from foreign courts, and re- 
mitted them to the Nabob of Arcot; they fell 
upon, and totally destroyed, the oldest ally 
of the Company, the king of Tanjore, and 
plundered the country to the amount of near 
five millions sterling; one after another, in 
the Nabob's name, but with English force, 
they brought into a miserable servitude all the 
princes and great independent nobility of a vast 
country. In proportion to these treasons and 
violences, which ruined the people, the fund 
of the Nabob's debt grew and flourished. 

Among the victims to this magnificent plan 
of universal plunder, worthy of the heroic 
avarice of the projectors, you have all heard 
(and he has made himself to be well remem- 
bered) of an Indian chief called Hyder Ali 
Khan. This man possessed the western, as 
the Company, under the name of the Nabob 
of Arcot, does the eastern division of the 
Carnatic. It was among the leading measures 
in the design of this cabal (according to their 
own emphatic language) to extirpate this Hyder 
Ali. They declared the Nabob of Arcot to be 



268 



EDMUND BURKE 



his sovereign, and himself to be a rebel, and 
publicly invested their instrument with the 
sovereignty of the kingdom of Mysore. But 
their victim was not of the passive kind. They 
were soon obliged to conclude a treaty of peace 
and close alliance with this rebel, at the gates 
of Madras. Both before and since that treaty, 
every principle of policy pointed out this power 
as a natural alliance; and on his part it was 
courted by every sort of amicable office. But 
the cabinet council of English creditors would 
not suffer their Nabob of Arcot to sign the 
treaty, nor even to give to a prince at least his 
equal the ordinary titles of respect and courtesy. 
From that time forward, a continued plot was 
carried on within the divan, black and white, 
of the Nabob of Arcot, for the destruction 
of Hyder AH. As to the outward members of 
the double, or rather treble government of 
Madras, which had signed the treaty, they were 
always prevented by some overruling influence 
(which they do not describe, but which cannot 
be misunderstood) from performing what jus- 
tice and interest combined so evidently to 
enforce. 

When at length Hyder AH found that he had 
to do with men who either would sign no con- 
vention, or whom no treaty and no signature 
could bind, and who were the determined 
enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed 
to make the country possessed by these in- 
corrigible and predestinated criminals a mem- 
orable example to mankind. He resolved, in 
the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of 
such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an 
everlasting monument of vengeance, and to 
put perpetual desolation as a barrier between 
him and those against whom the faith which 
holds the moral elements of the world together 
was no protection. He became at length so 
confident of his force, so collected in his might, 
that he made no secret whatsoever of his 
dreadful resolution. Having terminated his 
disputes with every enemy and every rival, 
who buried their mutual animosities in their 
common detestation against the creditors of 
the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every 
quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add 
to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; 
and compounding all the materials of fury, 
havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, 
he hung for a while on the declivities of the 
mountains. Whilst the authors of all these 
evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this 
menacing meteor, which blackened all their 
horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down 



the whole of its contents upon the plains of the 
Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the 
like of which no eye had seen, no heart con- 
ceived, and which no tongue can adequately 
tell. All the horrors of war before known or 
heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A 
storm of universal fire blasted every field, con- 
sumed every house, destroyed every temple. 
The miserable inhabitants, flying from their 
flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; 
others, without regard to sex, to age, to the 
respect of rank or sacredness of function, 
fathers torn from children, husbands from 
wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, 
and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and 
the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept 
into captivity in an unknown and hostile land. 
Those who were able to evade this tempest 
fled to the walled cities ; but escaping from fire, 
sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of 
famine. 

The alms of the settlement, in this dreadful 
exigency, were certainly liberal; and all was 
done by charity that private charity could do: 
but it was a people in beggary ; it was a nation 
which stretched out its hands for food. For 
months together, these creatures of sufferance, 
whose very excess and luxury in their most 
plenteous days had fallen short of the allow- 
ance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, 
resigned, without sedition or disturbance, 
almost without complaint, perished by an hun- 
dred a day in the streets of Madras; every day 
seventy at least laid their bodies in, the streets 
or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of 
famine in the granary of India. I was going 
to awake your justice towards this unhappy 
part of our fellow-citizens, by bringing before 
you some of the circumstances of this plague 
of hunger: of all the calamities which beset 
and waylay the life of man, this comes the 
nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the 
proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing 
more than he is: but I find myself unable to 
manage it with decorum ; these details are of a 
species of horror so nauseous and disgusting, 
they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the 
hearers, they are so humiliating to human 
nature itself, that, on better thoughts, I find 
it more advisable to throw a pall over this 
hideous object, and to leave it to your .general 
conceptions. 

For eighteen months, without intermission, 
this destruction raged from the gates of Madras 
to the gates of Tanjore ; and so completely 
did these masters in their art, Hyder All and 



SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS 



269 



his more ferocious son, absolve themselves 
of their impious vow, that, when the British 
armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic 
for hundreds of miles in all directions, through 
the whole line of their march they did not see 
one man, not one woman, not one child, not 
one four-footed beast of any description what- 
ever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over 
the whole region. With the inconsiderable 
exceptions of the narrow vicinage of some few 
forts, I wish to be understood as speaking 
literally. I mean to produce to you more 
than three witnesses, above all exception, who 
will support this assertion in its. full extent. 
That hurricane of war passed through every 
part of the central provinces of the Carnatic. 
Six or seven districts to the north and to the 
south (and these not wholly untouched) es- 
caped the general ravage. 

The Carnatic is a country not much infe- 
rior in extent to England. Figure to yourself, 
Mr. Speaker, the land in whose representative 
chair you sit ; figure to yourself the form and 
fashion of your sweet and cheerful country 
from Thames to Trent, north and south, and 
from the Irish to the German Sea, east and west, 
emptied and embowelled (may God avert the 
omen of our crimes !) by so accomplished a 
desolation. Extend your imagination a little 
further, and then suppose your ministers taking 
a survey of this scene of waste and desolation. 
What would be your thoughts, if you should be 
informed that they were computing how much 
had been the amount of the excises, how much 
the customs, how much the land and malt tax, 
in order that they should charge (take it in the 
most favourable light) for public service, upon 
the relics of the satiated vengeance of relent- 
less enemies, the whole of what England had 
yielded in the most exuberant seasons of peace 
and abundance? What would you call it? 
To call it tyranny sublimed into madness would 
be too faint an image ; yet this very madness is 
the principle upon which the ministers at your 
right hand have proceeded in their estimate 
of the revenues of the Carnatic, when they were 
providing, not supply for the establishments of 
its protection, but rewards for the authors of 
its ruin. 

Every day you are fatigued and disgusted 
with this cant, "The Carnatic is a country that 
will soon recover, and become instantly as 
prosperous as ever." They think they are 
talking to innocents, who will believe, that, by 
sowing of dragons' teeth, men may come up 
ready grown and ready armed. They who will 



give themselves the trouble of considering (for 
it requires no great reach of thought, no very 
profound knowledge) the manner in which man- 
kind are increased, and countries cultivated, 
will regard all this raving as it ought to be re- 
garded. In order that the people, after a long 
period of vexation and plunder, may be in a 
condition to maintain government, government 
must begin by maintaining them. Here the 
road to economy lies not through receipt, 
but through expense; and in that country 
Nature has given no short cut to your object. 
Men must propagate, like other animals, by 
the mouth. Never did oppression light the 
nuptial torch; never did extortion and usury 
spread out the genial bed. Does any of you 
think that England, so wasted, would, under 
such a nursing attendance, so rapidly and 
cheaply recover? But he is meanly acquainted 
with either England or India who does not know 
that England would a thousand times sooner 
resume population, fertility, and what ought to 
be the ultimate secretion from both, revenue, 
than such a country as the Carnatic. 

The Carnatic is not by the bounty of Nature 
a fertile soil. The general size of its cattle is 
proof enough that it is much otherwise. It is 
some days since I moved that a curious and 
interesting map, kept in the India House, should 
be laid before you. The India House is not yet 
in readiness to send it ; I have therefore brought 
down my own copy, and there it lies for the use 
of any gentleman who may think such a matter 
worthy of his attention. It is, indeed, a noble 
map, and of noble things; but it is decisive 
against the golden dreams and sanguine specu- 
lations of avarice run mad. In addition to what 
you know must be the case in every part of the 
world, (the necessity of a previous provision 
of habitation, seed, stock, capital,) that map 
will show you that the uses of the influences of 
Heaven itself are in that country a work of 
art. The Carnatic is refreshed by few or no 
living brooks or running streams, and it has 
rain only at a season ; but its product of rice 
exacts the use of water subject to perpetual 
command. This is the national bank of the 
Carnatic, on which it must have a perpetual 
credit, or it perishes irretrievably. For that 
reason, in the happier times of India, a number, 
almost incredible, of reservoirs have been made 
in chosen places throughout the whole country : 
they are formed, for the greater part, of mounds 
of earth and stones, with sluices of solid masonry ; 
the whole constructed with admirable skill and 
labour, and maintained at a mighty charge. In 



270 



I'MMl \1> ITkkK 



the territory contained In thai map alone, I 
have been at the trouble of reckoning the res 
ervoirs, and they amount to upwards of eleven 
hundred, from the extent >'i two or three acres 
to five milis in circuit. From these reservoirs 
currents are occasionally drawn over the fields, 
and these watercourses again call for 1 consid 
erable expense to keep them properly scoured 
and duly levelled. Taking the district in thai 
map as 1 measure, there cannot be in the Car 
natic and Tanjore fewer than ten thousand of 
these reservoirs of the larger and middling di- 
mensions, to say nothing 01 those for domestic 
services, and the use 01 religious purification. 
These are not the enterprises of youi power, nor 
in a style of magnificence suited to the taste of 

your minister Phese air the monuments of 

real kings, who were the fathers of their people, 
testators to a posterity which they embraced 
as their own These are the grand sepulchres 
built by ambition, but by the ambition of an 
insatiable benevolence, which, not contented 
with reigning in the dispensation of happiness 
iluring the contracted term of human lite, bad 
strained, with all the teachings and graspings 
of a vivacious mind, to extend the dominion 
of their bounty beyond the limits o\ Nature, 
and to perpetuate themselves through genera 
tions of generations, tin- guardians, the pro 
lectors, tin- oourishers of mankind. 

1 ong before the late invasion, the persons 
who are objects of the granl of public money 
now before von had so diverted tin- supply 
of the pious funds of culture and population, 
that everywhere tin- reservoirs were fallen into 
a miserable decay. Bui after those domestic 
enemies had provoked the entry of a cruel 
foreign too into tin- country, he did not leave 
it, until his revenge had completed the de- 
struction begun by their avarice. Few, very 
tew indeed, of these magasines of water that are 
not either totally destroyed, or cut through with 
such gaps as to require a serious attention and 
much cost to reestablish them, as the means of 
present subsistence to the people and of future 
revenue to the state. 

What, Sir, would a virtuous and enlightened 
ministry <.\o, on the view of the ruins of such 
woiks before them? on the view of such 
a chasm of desolation as thai which yawned in 
tin- midst of those countries, to the north and 
south, which still bore some vestiges of culti 
vation? riu-v would have reduced all their 
most necessary establishments; they would have 
suspended the justesl payments; they would 
have employed every shilling derived from the 



producing to reanimate the powers of the 
unproductive parts. While they were perform- 
in- this fundamental duty, whilst they were 
celebrating these mysteries of justice and 
humanity, they would have told the corps of 
fictitious creditors, whose crimes were their 

Claims, that they must keep an awful distance, 

that they must silence their inauspicious 

tongues, that they must hold oil' their profane, 

unhallowed paws from this holy work; they 
would have proclaimed, with a voice thai 

should make itself heard, that on every Coun- 
try the firsl Creditor is the plough, that this 

original, indefeasible claim supersedes every 
other demand 

This is what a wise and virtuous ministry 
Would have done and said. This, therefore, 

is what our minister could never think of 

Saying or doing. A ministry Ol another kind 

would have fust improved the country, and have 

thus laid a solid foundation for future opulence 
and future force Hut on this grand point o\ 
the restoration of the countrv there is not one 

syllable to he found in the correspondence oi 

our ministers, from the first to the last; they 
felt nothing for a land desolated by tire, sword, 
and famine: their sympathies took another 
direction; they were touched with pity for 
bribery, so long tormented with a fruitless 
itching of its palms; their bowels yearned 
for usury, that had long missed the harvest of 
its returning months; they felt for peculation, 
which had been for so many years raking in the 
dust of an empty treasury; they wvre melted 
into compassion for rapine and oppression, 
licking their dry, parched, unbloooiv jaws 
These were the objects of their solicitude. 
These were the necessities for which they 

were studious to provide. ***** 

FaoH REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLU- 
TION i\ PRANCE 

This, my dear Sir, was not the triumph of 
France. 1 must believe, that, as a nation, it 
overwhelmed you with shame and horror. 
1 must believe that the National Assembly 

find themselves in a state of the greatest humilia- 
tion in not being able to punish the authors oi 

this triumph or the actors in it, and that they 
are in a situation in which any inquiry they may 
make upon the subject must be destitute even 
oi the appearance of liberty or impartiality. 
The apology of that assembly is found in their 
situation; but when we approve what they 



KKFLKCTIONS ()N TIM': INVOLUTION IN [''RANCH 



271 



must bear, it is in us the degenerate choice of 
a vitiated mind. 
Willi a compelled appearance <>f deliberation, 

they vole under the dominion Of a Stem neces- 
sity. They sit in the heart, as it were, of a 

foreign republic: they have their residence in 

a city whose constitution has emanated neither 

from the charter of their king nor from their 

legislative power. There they are surrounded 

by an army not raised either by the authority 

01 their crown or by their command, and which, 
if they should order to dissolve itself, would 
instantly dissolve them. There they sit, alter 
a gang of assassins had driven away some- 
hundreds of the members; whilst those who 
held the same moderate principles, with more 
patience <>r better hope, continued every day 
exposed to outrageous insults and murderous 

threats. There a majority, sometimes real, 
sometimes pretended, captive itself, compels 
a captive king to issue as royal edicts, at third 
hand, the polluted nonsense of their most 
licentious and Kiddy coffee houses. It is no- 
torious that all their measures are decided 
before they are debated. It is beyond doubt, 
that, under the terror of the bayonet, and the 
lamp post, and the torch to their houses, they 
are obliged to adopt all the crude and desper- 
ate measures suggested by clubs composed of 
a monstrous medley of all conditions, tongues, 
and nations. Among these are found persons 
in comparison of whom Catiline would be 
thought scrupulous, and Cethegus a man of 
sobriety and moderation. Nor is it in these 
clubs alone that the public measures are de- 
formed into monsters. They undergo a pre- 
vious distortion in academies, intended as so 
many seminaries for these clubs, whic.li are set 
Up in all the places of public resort. In these 
meetings of all sorts, every counsel, in pro- 
|K>rlion as it is daring and violent and perfidious, 
is taken for the mark of superior genius. 
Humanity and compassion are ridiculed as 
the fruits of superstition and ignorance. Ten- 
derness to individuals is considered as treason 
to the public. Liberty is always to be estl 
mated perfect as property is rendered insecure. 
Amidsl assassination, massacre, and confisca- 
tion, perpetrated or meditated, they are form- 
ing plans for the good order of future society. 
Embracing in their arms the carcasses of base 
criminals, and promoting their relations on the 
title of their offences, they drive hundreds of 

virtuous persons to the; same end, by I ;; 

them to subsist by beggary or by crime. 

The Assembly, their organ, acts before them 



the farce of deliberation with as little decency 
as liberty. They act like the comedians of 
a fair, before a riotous audience; they act 
amidsl the tumultuous cries of a mixed mob 
of ferocious men, and of women lost to shame, 
who, according to their insolent fancies, direct, 

control, applaud, explode them, and sometimes 

mix and take their seals amongst them, — 
domineering over them with a strange mixture 
of servile petulance and proud, presumptuous 
authority. As they have inverted order in all 
things, the gallery is in the place of the house. 
This Assembly, which overthrows kings and 
kingdoms, has not even the physiognomy 
and aspect of a grave legislative body, — nee 
color imperii, nee frotis erat ulla senatus. 
They have a power given to them, like thai ol 
the Evil Principle, to subvert and destroy, — 
but none to construct, except such machines as 
may be fitted for further subversion and further 
destruction. 

Who is it that admires, and from the heart is 
attached to national representative assemblies, 
but must turn with horror and disgust from 
Such a profane burlesque and abominable 
perversion of that sacred institute? Lovers 
of monarchy, lovers of republics, must alike 
abhor it. The members of your Assembly 
must themselves groan under the tyranny of 
which they have all the shame, none of the 
direction, and little of the profit. I am sure 
many of the members who compose even the 
majority of that body must feel as I do, not- 
withstanding the applauses of the Revolution 
Society. Miserable king! miserable Assembly ! 
How must that Assembly be silently scan- 
dalised with those of their members who could 
call a day which seemed to blot the sun out of 
heaven "101 beau jour!'' 1 How must they be 
inwardly indignant at hearing others who 
thought fit to declare to them, "that the vessel 
of the state would fly forward in her course 
towards regeneration with more speed than 
ever," from the stiff gale of treason and mur- 
der which preceded our preacher's triumph ! 
What must they have felt, whilst, with outward 
patience and inward indignation, they heard of 
the slaughter of innocent gentlemen in their 
houses, that "the blood spilled was not the most 
pure!" What must they have felt, when they 
were besieged by complaints of disorders which 
shook their country to its foundations, at being 
compelled coolly to tell the complainants that 
they were under ihe protection 01 the law, and 
that they would address the king (the captive 
king) to cause the laws to be enforced for their 






EDMUND BURKE 



protection, when the enslaved ministers of that 
captive king had formally notified to them that 
there were neither law nor authority nor power 
left to protect! What must they nave felt at 
obliged, as a felicitation on the present new 
year, to request their captive king to forget the 
stormy period of the last, on account of the 
great good which towaslikelj to produce to his 
people, to the complete attainment of which 
good they adjourned the practical demon 
strations of their loyalty, assuring him of their 
obedience when he should no longer possess 
any authority to command I 

This address was made with much good 
nature and affection, to be sure. Bu1 among 
the revolutions in France must be reckoned 
a considerable revolution in their ideas oi 
politeness, fn England we arc said to learn 
manners at second hand from your side of the 
water, and that we dress our behaviour in the 
frippen oi France, if so, we arc siill in 
the old cut, and have not so far conformed to 
the new Parisian mode of good breeding as to 
think it quite in the most refined strain of 
delicate compliment (whether In condolence or 
congratulation) to say, to the most humiliated 
creature thai crawls upon the earth, that great 
public benefits are derived from the murder 
of his servants, the attempted assassination of 
himself and of his wife, and the mortification, 
disgrace, and degradation that he lias personally 
suffered. It Is a topic of consolation which our 
ordinary of Newgate would be too humane to 
use to a criminal at the foot of the gallows. 
I should have thought that the hangman of 
Paris, now that he is liberalised bj tin- vote of 

the National \ssemhlv . and is allowed his rank 
and arms in the Heralds' College of the rights 
oi men. would he too generous, too gallant a 
man, too lull oi the sense of his new dignity, 
to employ that cutting cousol.uiou to any of the 

persons whom the ! ,•».• might bring under 

the administration oi his executive po 

A man is fallen indeed, when he is thus 

flattered. The anodyne draught oi oblivion, 

thus drugged, is well Calculated to preserve a 

galling wakefulness, and to teed the living 
ulcer oi a corroding memory, rims to .\A 

minister the opiate potion of amnesty, powdered 

with all the ingredients oi scorn ami contempt, 

is to hold to his lips, instead oi "the halm of hurt 
minds," tin- cup of human misery full to the 
brim, and to force him to drink it to the dregs. 
\ ielding to reasons at least as forcible as those 
which were so delicately urged in the compli- 
ment on the new year, the king oi Trance will 



probably endeavour to forget these events and 

that compliment. Hut History, who keeps a 
durable record of all our acts, and exercises 
her awful censure over the proceedings of all 

sorts of sovereigns, will not forget either those 
events, or tin- era of this liberal refinement 

in the Intercourse oi mankind. History will 
record, that, on the morning oi the sixth oi 
October, 1789, the king and queen of France. 
after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and 

slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security 

of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours 
^i respite, and troubled, melancholy repose. 
From this sleep the queen was first startled by 
the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried 
out to her to save herself by flight, that this 
was the last proof of fidelity he could give, 
that thej Were upon him, and he was dead. 
Instantly he was cut down A hand of cruel 
1 uiii. ins and assassins, reeking With his blood, 
rushed into the chamber oi the queen, and 
pierced with a hundred strokes oi bayonets 
and poniards the bed, from whence this per- 
secuted woman had hut just time to fly almost 
naked, and, through ways unknown to the 
murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the 
feet of a king and husband not secure of his 
ow n life for a moment. 

This king, to say no more of him, and this 
queen, and their infant children, (who once 
would have been the pride and hope of a great 
and generous people,) were then forced to aban- 
don the sanctuary of the most Splendid palace in 
the world, which they left swimming in blood, 
polluted by massacre, and st tewed with scat- 
tered limbs and mutilated carcasses. Thence 
they wire conducted into the capital of their 
kingdom- Pwo had been selected from the un- 
provoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter 
which was made oi the gentlemen of birth and 
family who composed the king's body guard. 
These two gentlemen, with all the parade oi ,\n 
execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly 
dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great 
Court oi the palace. Their heads were stuck 
upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the 
royal captives who followed in the train were 
slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, 
and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, 
and infamous contumelies, and all the unutter- 
able abominations of the furies of hell, in the 
abused shape oi the vilest of women. After 
they had been made to taste, drop by drop. 
more than the bitterness oi death, in the slow- 
tort ure of a journey of twelve miles, protracted 
to six hours, they were. Under a guard com- 



REFLECTIONS <>N 'nil-: l'l.\ '< >l ,HTI< >N IN kuanci-: 






pi", (.I iii 1 1 lose \ 1 1 y soldiers who had Ihus 

UUCU'd I lii'in I lin lUgll I Ins l.i mi hi . 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 > I ) , 

|i idgi il iii one "i Ihi old palm i ■■• ol I'uris, now 
c unvei ted into n Uusl ile foj kings 

Is this a ii i i'ii to be si crated at alturs, 

in be i ommemoraled with grateful thanl s 
:'i\ i M ■ • . in be offered to the I >i\ ine I lumunil y 
wiih in \'iii pi ayci and enthu iia il ii i ja< ulu 
i urn ' These 'Ihcban and Thracian 01 gii , 
acted in Pram >', and applaudi <l only in i he 
t >|<| |i w i j , I assui c you, kindle prophel ii 
enthusiasm in the minds bul oi vei v few people 

in i his kingdom : ;ih I gh i sainl and apostle, 

who may have revelal ions oi Ids own, and who 
has so i omplctely vanquished all Lhe mean 
superstil ions ol the heai t, may incline to 

i iiini ii pious and dc< is to i omparc ii with 

the entrance into the woi l<l oi the Princi ol 
Peace, proi laimed in an holy ti mple bj u 
venerable sage, and nol long before nol worse 

. i ii* id l>v the voi( c "i angels to the quiel 

inn' n mi c ul shephi rds 

,\i in:. i I was al b loss to ai i ounl foi Ihi i fil 
n| unguarded transport I knew, indeed, that 

I h ":, iilli i in":, "I iih m.ii i Ii:. make B 'I 1 li< s 

repasl to some soi I ol palates There were 

hiIi i ii. his wlni li mighl servi to keep this 
appetite within some bounds oi temperance. 
Hut when I i' '"I. "in' < ii < i itance mi" my 

< iiliMilrl.il lull, I \v:i:.i il ill"ril I ill :.', I ll.ll HUH II 

b Hi iwani <• ought to bi madi foi Lhe s< » iel y, 
. 1 1 1 ' l thai Lhe temptation was too strong for 

non discretion l mean, Lh umstance 

<>i lin- in Paean oi the triumph, the animating 
cry which called for " all the bishops to be hanged 
mi i In lamp posts," mighl well have bn lughl 
foi ih ;i burs! <ii enthusiasm on Lhe foresei n 
1 1 hi ,i qui in ■ i ol i in,, happy day I allow to s< i 

nun h enthusiasm some litl le di \ ial ion I i 

pi in h in r I allow this pi' iphel to break forth 
into hymns oi joy and thanl sgi\ ing on an i vi nl 
w lin li appears like the precursoi oi Lhi Millen 
iiiiini, and lin projected Pifl li Monarchy, in 
the desti ui Lion oi all ( !hun h i stablishmi nl i 
There was, however, (as in all human affairs 

there is,) in the Isl ol this ji iy, Bomel hing Lo 

' ercise the pal ieni < "I these wi irthy genl le 

mi ii, and i" try the long lull ol theii 

i lilh 'The actual murdei ol tin I ing and 
queen, and i lieii i hild, was wanl ing lo the 
olhei au ipii ious ' mi mhi i. mi es ol this "beau 
tiful day " The ai tual murdei ol I In I ii'shops, 

1 1 -li i ailed foi bj so many holv i |ai ulal ion , 

was also wi ng \ group oi regii idi 

.'ui' ;bu slaughtei was, indi ed, boldly 
iketched, but il wai Iy ski t< lied, li unhap 



pily was I' H unfinishi d, In this grcal hisloi y 

en -I '• ul lhe im.i. ..H re ol ents What 

hardy peni il "I a greal masti i , from i lie si I I 

ol ilir i ights "i men, will finish it, is to bi leen 
hi reufti i The age has nol yel the i omplcte 
bcneiil of that diffusion ul km iv\ li 'I",' i hal has 

unden ed superstition and error; and the 

i 'i l' rani e wants anol liei objci i oi two to 

1 1 msign i" oblivion, in i onsidi ration "I all the 

g I which is i" arise I rom his own suffci ings, 

and lhe patriotii ci I an enlightened age. 

Although this wort ol oui new lighl and 
l in iwli dge did nol go lo tin lengl li thai in all 
probabilil y ii was intended il should be < ar 

1 1' 'l, yel i ' think thai such treat menl of 

any human creal ures musl be shoi I ing lo any 
Ihii those who are made foi ai compli ihing 
rcvolul ions Bui l i annol stop here Inilu 
(in ed by i he inboi n feelings ol my nal urc, and 

nol being ill inated b) b b ;fc ray ol I his 

in w spi mi", model n light, I i onfi • to you, I Iii , 
thai lhe exulted rank ol the person BufTei ing, 
and I'.n in ularly the si ■ , the bcaul y, and I he 
amiable qualil ies ol lhe desi endanl "I so many 
I in" . and emperors, with lhi tcndei age of 
royal infants, nisi nsible only through ini.nn y 
and innocenci ol lhe < i uel oul ragi i to whii h 
i In n parents were cxpi >si d, insti ad oi bi ing 
,i .nl ije< i'ii' ultation, adds nol 8 little to my 
sensibilil y on i hal mosl mi lam holy oi i asion 

I heai thai the augusl pen who was the 

l 'i pal objci i ol "in |>m ,ii in i ':, 1 1 iumph, 

ih li In' :.ii|i|>"iii'ii himself, fell mm li on thai 

shamel ul occasion V; a man, il bc< amc him 
i.i feel I"i In i wife and his i hildren, and the 
faithful guards ol his person thai wen mu 
acred in cold blood aboul him , as ;i prince, 
ii bci ame him i" feel foi i he si range and fi ighl 
ImI transfoi mal ion oi his ch ilisi d subjects, 
and i" l"' more gi ieved foi i hem than so Iii ilous 

foi him 'li li de ati • litl le I his i"iii 

i udc, while il adds infinitely to the I ii 

his humanity I am very sorry to say it, very 
boi i v indeed, thai sui li pcrsonagi s are in a 

sil n.ii ion m whii li ii is nol unbi i oming s 

to praise the virtui i of the greal 

I hca i , and I rcjoii e Lo heai , i hal i he greal 
lady, the othci "I ijei t ol the triumph, has borni 
i h.ii day, (oni is inter sted thai bi mgs made for 
suffi i ing should suffi i well,) and lhal she bears 
all the sui < ceding daj , thai sh< I" ars tl 

I'M.' nnirlil ul Ihi 1 1 1 1 .1 ..i i n I , ;i I n I In I uwii I .i|> 

livity, and the exile oj hei friends, and the in 
miIi ing adulal ion ol addi >s< . and i he win ile 

w i ighl of heraccu luted wrongs, wil li a sen ni 

putience, in s manuei suited Lo liei rank and 



274 



EDMUND BURKE 



race, and becoming the offspring of a sovereign 
distinguished for her piety and her courage; 
that, like her, she has lofty sentiments; that 
she feels with the dignity of a Roman matron ; 
that in the last extremity she will save herself 
from the last disgrace; and that, if she must 
fall, she will fall by no ignoble hand. 

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I 
saw the queen of France, then the Dauphin- 
ess, at Versailles; and surely never lighted 
on this orb, which she hardly seemed to 
touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her 
just above the horizon, decorating and cheering 
the elevated sphere she just began to move in, 
— glittering like the morning-star, full of life 
and splendour and joy. Oh ! what a revolution ! 
and what an heart must 1 have, to contemplate 
without emotion that elevation and that fall! 
Little did I dream, when she added titles of 
veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, 
respectful love, that she should ever be obliged 
to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace 
concealed in that bosom! little did I dream 
that I should have lived to see such disasters 
fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a 
nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers! I 
thought ten thousand swords must have leaped 
from their scabbards to avenge even a look 
that threatened her with insult. But the age 
of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, econo- 
mists, and calculators has succeeded; and the 
glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, 
nevermore, shall we behold that generous loyalty 
to rank and sex, that proud submission, that 
dignified obedience, that subordination of the 
heart, which kept alive, even in servitude 
itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The 
unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of 
nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic 
enterprise, is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility 
of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt 
a stain like a wound, which inspired courage 
whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled 
whatever it touched, and under which vice 
itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness ! 

The mixed system of opinion and sentiment 
had its origin in the ancient chivalry; and the 
principle, though varied in its appearance by 
the varying state of human affairs, subsisted 
and influenced through a long succession of 
generations, even to the time we live in. If it 
should ever lie totally extinguished, the loss, 
I fear, will he great. It is this which has given 
its character to modern Europe. It is this 
which has distinguished it under all its forms 
of government, and distinguished it to its ad- 



vantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly 
from those states which flourished in the most 
brilliant periods of the antique world. It was 
this, which, without confounding ranks, had 
produced a noble equality, and handed it 
down through all the gradations of social life. 
It was this opinion which mitigated kings into 
companions, and raised private men to be 
fellows with kings. Without force or opposi- 
tion, it subdued the fierceness of pride and 
power; it obliged sovereigns to submit to the 
soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern 
authority to submit to elegance, and gave a 
domination, vanquisher of laws, to be subdued 
by manners. 

But now all is to be changed. All the pleas- 
ing illusions which made power gentle and 
obedience liberal, which harmonised the dif- 
ferent shades of life, and which by a bland 
assimilation incorporated into politics the 
sentiments which beautify and soften private 
society, are to be dissolved by this new con- 
quering empire of light and reason. All the 
decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn^ff. 
All the superadded ideas, furnished from the 
wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the 
heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as 
necessary to cover the defects of our naked, 
shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in 
our own estimation, are to be exploded as a 
ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion. 

On this scheme of things, a king is but a 
man, a queen is but a woman, a woman is but 
an animal, — and an animal not of the highest 
order. All homage paid to the sex in general 
as such, and without distinct views, is to 
be regarded as romance and folly". Regicide, 
and parricide, and sacrilege, are but fictions of 
superstition, corrupting jurisprudence by de- 
stroying its simplicity. The murder of a king, 
or a queen, or a bishop, or a father, are only 
common homicide, — and if the people are by 
any chance or in any way gainers by it, a sort 
of homicide much the most pardonable and 
into which we ought not to make too severe a 
scrutiny. 

On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, 
which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy 
understandings, and which is as void of solid 
wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and ele- 
gance, laws are to be supported only by their 
own terrors, and by the concern which each 
individual may find in them from his own 
private speculations, or can spare to them from 
his own private interests. In the groves 
of their academy, at the end of every visto, 



THE POEMS OF OSSIAN 



275 



you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing is 
left which engages the affections on the part 
of the commonwealth. On the principles 
of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions 
can never be embodied, if I may use the ex- 
pression, in persons, — so as to create in us 
love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. 
But that sort of reason which banishes the 
affections is incapable of fdling their place. 
These public affections, combined with man- 
ners, are required sometimes as supplements, 
sometimes as correctives, always as aids to 
law. The precept given by a wise man, as 
well as a great critic, for the construction of 
poems, is equally true as to states: — "Non 
satis est pulcJira esse poemata, dulcia su)ll(>. ,, 
There ought to be a system of manners in 
every nation which a well-formed mind would 
be disposed to relish. To make us love our 
country, our country ought to be lovely. 

But power, of some kind or other, will sur- 
vive the shock in which manners and opinions 
perish ; and it will find other and worse means 
for its support. The usurpation, which, in 
order to subvert ancient institutions, has de- 
stroyed ancient principles, will hold power by 
arts similar to those by which it has acquired 
it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit 
of fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, 
freed both kings and subjects from the pre- 
cautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the 
minds of men, plots and assassinations will be 
anticipated by preventive murder and pre- 
ventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim 
and bloody maxims which form the political 
code of all power not standing on its own hon- 
our and the honour of those who are to obey 
it. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when 
subjects are rebels from principle. 

When ancient opinions and rules of life are 
taken away, the loss cannot possibly be esti- 
mated. From that moment we have no com- 
pass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly 
to what port we steer. Europe, undoubtedly, 
taken in a mass, was in a flourishing condition 
the day on which your Revolution was com- 
pleted. How much of that prosperous state 
was owing to the spirit of our old manners and 
opinions is not easy to say; but as such causes 
cannot be indifferent in their operation, we must 
presume, that, on the whole, their operation 
was beneficial. 

We are but too apt to consider things in 
the state in which we find them, without 
sufficiently adverting to the causes by which 
they have been produced, and possibly may be 



upheld. Nothing is more certain than that 
our manners, our civilisation, and all the good 
things which are connected with manners and 
with civilisation, have, in this European world 
of ours, depended for ages upon two principles, 
and were, indeed, the result of both combined: 
I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit 
of religion. The nobility and the clergy, the 
one by profession, the other by patronage, 
kept learning in existence, even in the midst 
of arms and confusions, and whilst govern- 
ments were rather in their causes than formed. 
Learning paid back what it received to nobility 
and to priesthood, and paid it with usury, 
by enlarging their ideas, and by furnishing 
their minds. Happy, if they had all continued 
to know their indissoluble union, and their 
proper place ! Happy, if learning, not de- 
bauched by ambition, had been satisfied to 
continue the instructor, and not aspired to be 
the master! Along with its natural protectors 
and guardians, learning will be cast into the 
mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a 
swinish multitude. # * # # * 



JAMES MACPHERSON(P) (1736-1796) 

THE POEMS OF OSSIAN 

CATH-LODA 

DUAN III 

Whence is the stream of years? Whither 
do they roll along? Where have they hid, in 
mist, their many coloured sides? 

I look unto the times of old, but they seem 
dim to Ossian's eyes, like reflected moonbeams 
on a distant lake. Here rise the red beams 
of war ! There, silent, dwells a feeble race ! 
They mark no years with their deeds, as slow 
they pass along. Dweller between the 
shields! thou that awakest the failing soul! 
descend from thy wall, harp of Cona, with thy 
voices three ! Come with that which kindles 
the past: rear the forms of old, on their own 
dark-brown years ! 

U-thorno, hill of storms, I behold my race 
on thy side. Fingal is bending in night over 
Duth-maruno's tomb. Near him are the steps 
of his heroes, hunters of the boar. By Tur- 
thor's stream the host of Lochlin is deep in 
shades. The wrathful kings stood on two 
hills: they looked forward from their bossy 
shields. They looked forward to the stars 
of night, red wandering in the west. Cruth- 



>76 



T1IK POEMS or OSSIAN 



loda bends from high, like a formless meteor 

in clouds. He sends abroad the winds, and 

marks them with his signs. Stamo foresaw 
that Morven's king was nol to yield in war. 

lie twice struck the tree in wrath. He 
rushed before his son. He hummed a surly 

Song, and heard his hair in wind. Turned hum 
one another, they stood, like two oaks, which 
different winds had bent; each hangs over his 
own loud rill, and shakes his boughs in the 
Course of Masts. 

"Annir," said Starno of lakes, "was a fire 
thai consumed of old. 1 lc poured death from 

his eves along the striving fields. His joy was 

in the fall of men. Blood to him was a sum- 
mer stream, that brings! joy to the withered 
\rales, from its own mossy rock, lie came 
forth to the lake l.uth cormo, to meet tin- tall 

Corman trunar, he from [Jrlor of streams, 
dweller of battle's win; 1 ;" 

The chief of Urlor had come to Gormal 

with his dark-bosomed ships, lie saw the 

daughter of Annir, while armed boina bragal. 
He saw her! Nor careless rolled her eves on 
the rider of Stormy waves. She lied to his ship 
in darkness, like a moonbeam through a nightly 
veil. Annir pursued along the deep; he called 
the winds of heaven. Nor alone was the kin;.; ! 
Starno was by his side. Like V thorno's 
young eagle, 1 turned my eves on my father. 

We rushed into roaring Trior. With his 
people came tall Corman trunar. We fought; 
but the ioc prevailed. In his wrath my 
father stood, lie lopped the young trees with 

his sword. Mis eyes rolled red in his rage. 
I marked the soul ^\ the king, and I retired 
in night. From the field 1 look a broken hel- 
met; a shield that was pierced with steel; 
pointless was the spear in my hand. 1 went to 
find the toe. 

On a rock sat tall Corman trunar beside his 
burning oak; and near him beneath a tree, 
sat deep bosomed l'oina bragal. I threw my 
broken shield before her. I spoke the words of 
peace. "Beside his rolling Sea lies Annir of 
many lakes. The king was pierced in battle; 
and Stamo is to raise his tomb. Me, a son oi 
Loda, he sends to white handed l'oina, to bid 
her send a lock from her hair, to res! with her 
father in earth. And thou, king of roaring 
[Jrlor, let tin' battle tease, till Annir receive 
the shell from fiery eyed Cruth loda." 

Bursting into tears, she rose, and tore a lock 
from her hair; a lock, which wandered in the 

blast, along her heaving breast. Corman- 
trunargave the shell, and bade me rejoice before 



him, I rested in the shade of night, and hid 

my face in my helmet deep Sleep descended 

on the foe 1 rose, like a stalking ghost. 1 
pierced the side of Corman trunar. Nor did 
l'oina bragal escape. She rolled her white 
bosom in blood. 

Why, then, daughter of heroes, didst thou 

wake my rage? 

Morning rose. The foe were lied, like the 
departure of mist. Annir struck his bossy 
shield. He tailed his dark haired son. I 
came, streaked with wandering blood: thrice 
rose the shout of the king, like the bursting 
forth of a squall of wind from a cloud by night. 
We rejoiced three days above the dead, and 

called the hawks of heaven. They came from 

all their winds to feast on Annir's foes. Suaran, 
Fingal is alone in his hill of night. Let thy 
Spear pierce tin 1 king in secret; like Annir, 
my soul shall rejoice. 

"Son of Annir," said Sw.iran, "1 shall not 
slay in shades: 1 move forth in light: the 
hawks rush from all their winds. They are 
wont to tract' my course: it is not harmless 
through, war." 

burning rose the rage of the king. He thrice 
raised his gleaming spear. Hut, starting, he 
spaied his son, and rushed into the night. 
By Turthor's stream, a cave is dark, the dwell 

ing of Corban-cargla. There he laid the 
helmet of kings, and called the maid of Lulan; 
but she was distant far in Loda's resounding 
hall. 

Swelling in his rage, he strode 'to where 
Fingal lav alone. The king was laid on his 
shield, on his own secret hill. 

Stern hunter of shaggy boars! no feeble 
maid is laid before thee. No boy on his ferny 
bed, by Turthor's murmuring stream. Here 
is spread the <,\n\ch of the mighty, from which 
they rise to deeds of death ! 1 lunter of shaggy 
boars, awaken nol the terrible! 

Starno came murmuring on. Fingal arose 
in arms. "Who art thou, son of night!" 
Silent he threw the spear. They mixed their 
gloomy strife. The shield of Starno fell, cleft 
in twain, lie is bound to an oak. The early 
beam arose. It was then Fingal beheld the 
king. He rolled awhile his silent eyes. He 
thought of Other days, when white bosomed 
AgandeCCa moved like the music oi songs. He 
loosed the thong from his hands. " Son of 
Annir," he said, "retire. Retire to Gorffial of 
shells; a beam that was set returns. 1 remember 
thy white-bosomed daughter; dreadful king, 
away! do to thy troubled dwelling, cloudy 



JAMES BOSWELL 



77 



foe of the lovely. Let the stranger shun thee, 
thou gloomy in the hall ! " 
A talc of the times of old ! 

JAMES BOSWELL (1740-1795) 
THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSONi LL.D. 

CHAPTER XIII (176,3) 

As Dr. Oliver Goldsmith will frequently 
appear in this narrative, 1 shall endeavour to 
make my readers in some degree acquainted 
with his singular character. He was a native 
of Ireland, and a contemporary with Mr. 
Burke, at Trinity College, Dublin, hut did not 
then give much promise of future celebrity. 
He, however, observed to Mr. Malone, that 
"though he made no great figure in mathe- 
matics, which was a study in much repute 
there, he could turn an Ode of Horace into 
English better than any of them." lie after- 
wards studied physic at Edinburgh, and upon 
the Continent: and, I have been informed, 
was enabled to pursue his travels on foot, 
partly by demanding, at Universities, to enter 
the lists as a disputant, by which, according to 
the custom of many of them, he was entitled 
to the premium of a crown, when, luckily for 
him, his challenge was not accepted; so that, 
as I once observed to Dr. Johnson, he dis 
pitted his passage through Europe. He then 
came to England, and was employed succes- 
sively in the capacities of an usher to an 
academy, a corrector of the press, a reviewer, 
and a writer for a newspaper. He had sagai ity 
enough to cultivate assiduously the acquaint- 
ance of Johnson, and his faculties were 
gradually enlarged by the contemplation of 
such a model. To me and many others il 
appeared that he studiously copied the man- 
ner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a 
smaller scale. 

At this time I think he had published nothing 
with his name, though il was pretty generally 
known that one Dr. Goldsmith was the author 
of "An Inquiry into the present Slate of Polite 
Learning in Europe," and of "The Citizen 
of the World," a series of letters supposed to be; 
written from London by a Chinese. No man 
had the art of displaying with more advantage, 
as a writer, whatever literary acquisitions he- 
made. " Nihil quod tet&git non ornavit." ' His 
mind resembled a fertile but thin soil. There 

1 There was nothing he touched that he did not 
adorn. 



was a quick, but not a strong, vegetation, of 
whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No 
deep rool rould.be struck. The oak of the 
forest did noi grow there; but the elegant shrub- 
bery and the fragrant parterre appeared in gay 
succession. It has been generally circulated 
and believed that he was a mere fool in con 
versation; but, in truth, this has been greatly 
exaggerated. He had, no doubt, a more than 
common share of that hurry of ideas which we 
often find in his countrymen, and which some- 
times produces a laughable- confusion in ex 
pressing them. He was very much what the 
French call un ttourdi, and from vanity and 
an eager desire- of being conspicuous wherever 
he was, he frequently talked carelessly withoul 
knowledge of the subject, or even withoul 
thought. His person was short, his counte- 
nance coarse and vulgar, his deportment thai of 
a scholar awkwardly affecting the easy gentle- 
man. Those who were in any way distin- 
guished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous an 
excess, that the instances of it are hardly credible. 
When accompanying two beautiful young ladies, 
with their mother, on a tour in France, he was 
seriously angry that more attention was paid 
to them than te> him; and once; at the exhibi 
tion of the- Fantoccini in London, when those 
who sal nexl him observed with what dexterity 
a puppet was made- to toss a pike, he coulel not 
bear thai it should have such praise, and ex- 
claimed, with some- warmth, "Pshaw! I can 
do it better myself." 

I h-, I am afraid, had no settled system of any 
sort, so that his conduct must not be strictly 
scrutinised; but his affections were social and 
generous, and when he- had money he- gave it 
away very liberally. His desire of imaginary 
consequence predominated over his attention 
lo truth. When he began to rise into notice-, 
he- said he had a. brother who was Dean of 
Durham, a fiction so easily detected, that it is 
wonderful how he- should have been so incon- 
siderate as to hazard it. lie boasted to me at 
this time of the power of his pen in commanding 
money, which I believe was true in a certain 
ele-grer, though in the instance he gave he was 
by no means correct. He told me that he- had 
sold a novel for four hundred pounds. This 
was his "Vicar of Wakefield." But Johnson 
informed me that he- had made the bargain for 
Goldsmith, and the price was sixty pounds. 
"And, Sir," said he, "a sufficient price too, 
when it was sold; for then the fame of Golel- 
smith had not been elevated, as it afterwards 
was, by his 'Traveller'; and the bookseller 



•78 



JAMES BOSWELL 



luul such faint hopes of profit by his bargain, 
that he kepi the manuscript by him a long 
time, and did not publish it till after the 
'Traveller' had appeared. Then, to be sure, 
it was accidentally worth more money." 

Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins have 
strangely mis stated the history of Goldsmith's 
situation and Johnson's friendly interference, 
when this novel was sold. 1 shall give it 
authentically from Johnson's own exact nar- 
ration : 

" 1 received one morning a message from poor 
Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, 
as it was not in his power to come to me, beg 
ging that I would come to him as soon as pos- 
sible. 1 sent him a guinea, ami promised to 
come to him directly. I accordingly went as 
soon as 1 was dressed, and found that his land- 
lady had arrested him for his rent, at which 
he was in a violent passion. 1 perceived that 
he had already changed my guinea, ami had 
got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before 
him. 1 put the cork into the bottle, desired 
he would he calm, and began to talk to him of 
the means by which he might he extricated. 
lie then told me that he had a novel ready for 
the press, which he produced to me. I looked 
into it, and saw its merit; told the landlady 
1 should soon return; and, having gone to a 
bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. 1 brought 
Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his 
rent, not without rating his landlady in a high 
tone for having used him so ill." 

Mv next meeting with Johnson was on Fri- 
day, the tst of July, when he and I and Dr. 
Goldsmith supped at the Mitre. I was before 
this time pretty well acquainted with Gold- 
smith, who was one of the brightest ornaments 
of the Johnsonian school. Goldsmith's re 
spectful attachment to Johnson was then at its 
height; for his own literary reputation had not 
vet distinguished him so much as to excite a 
vain desire of competition with his great Master. 
He had increased mv admiration of the good- 
ness oi Johnson's heart, by incidental remarks 
in the course of conversation, such as, when 1 
mentioned Mr. I.evett, whom he entertained 
under his roof. "He is poor and honest, which 
is recommendation enough to Johnson;" and 
when I wondered that he was very kind to a 
man of whom I had heard a very bad character, 
"He is now become miserable, and that insures 
the protection of Johnson." 

Goldsmith attempting this evening to main- 
tain, 1 suppose from an affectation of paradox, 
"that knowledge was not desirable on its own 



account, for it often was a source of unhappi- 
ness: " Johnson: "Why, Sir, that knowledge 
may, in some cases, produce unhappiness, 1 
allow. Rut, upon the whole, knowledge, per 
s<\ is certainly an object which every man 
would wish to attain, although, perhaps, he 
may not take the trouble necessary for attain- 
ing it." 

Or. John Campbell, the celebrated political 
and biographical writer, being mentioned, 
Johnson said, "Campbell is a man of much 
knowledge, ami has a i^ooA share of imagi- 
nation. His 'Hermippus Redivivus' is very 
entertaining, as an account of the Hermetic 
philosophy, and as furnishing a curious history 
of the extravagancies of the human mind. 
If it were merely imaginary, it would be nothing 
at all. Campbell is not always rigidly careful 
of truth in his conversation; but 1 do not be- 
lieve there is anything of this carelessness in 
his books. Campbell is a good man, a pious 
man. I am afraid he has not been in the in- 
side of a church for many years; but he never 
passes a church without pulling off his hat. 
This shows that he has good principles. 1 
used to go pretty often to Campbell's on a 
Sunday evening, till I began to consider that 
the shoals of Scotchmen who flocked about 
him might probably say, when anything of 
mine was well done, ' Av, av, he has learned 
this of Cawmell!' " 

He talked very contemptuously of Churchill's 
poetry, observing, that "it had a temporary 
currency, only from its audacity of abuse, and 
being tilled with living names, and that it would 
sink into oblivion." I ventured to hint that 
he was not quite a fair judge, as Churchill 
had attacked him violently. Johnson: "Nay, 
Sir. I am a very fair judge. He did not attack 
me violently till he found I did not like his 
poetry; and his attack on me shall not prevent 
me from continuing to say what I think of him, 
from an apprehension that it may be ascribed 
to resentment. Xo, Sir, 1 called the fellow a 
blockhead at first, and 1 will call him a block- 
head still. However, I will acknowledge that 
I have a better opinion of him now than I 
once had; for he has shown more fertility 
than 1 expected. To be sure, he is a tree that 
cannot produce good fruit : he only bears 
crabs. But, Sir, a tree that produces a great 
many crabs, is better than a tree which pro- 
duces only a few." 

In this depreciation of Churchill's poetry, 
I could not agree with him. It is very true 
that the greatest part of it is upon the topics 



TNT: LII'K OF SAMUFL JOHNSON 



279 



of the day, on which account, as it broughl him 
greal fame and profil at the time, it must 
proportionably slide out of the public atten- 
tion, as other occasional objects succeed. But 

Churchill had extraordinary vigour both of 
thought and expression. His portraits of the 
players will ever be valuable to the true lovers 
of the drama; and his Strong caricatures of 
several eminent men of his age, will not be 
forgotten by the curious. Let me add, that 
there are in his works many passages which are 
of a general nature; and his "Prophecy of 
Famine" is a poem of no ordinary merit. It 
is, indeed, falsely injurious to Scotland; but 
therefore, may be allowed a greater share of 
invention. 

Bonnell Thornton had just published a bur- 
lesque "Ode on St. Cecilia's day," adapted 
to the ancient British music, viz., the salt box, 
the Jew's-harp, the marrow bones and cleaver, 
the hum strum, or hurdy-gurdy, etc. John- 
son praised its humour, and seemed much 
diverted with it. He repeated the following 
passage: 

" In strains more exalted the Bait box shall join, 
And 1 lattering ami battering and clapping combine ; 
Willi a rap and a !;■]>, while the hollow side sounds, 
Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling re- 
bounds." 

T mentioned the periodical paper called 
"The Connoisseur." lie said it wanted mat- 
ter. No doubt it had not the deep think- 
ing of Johnson's writings. But surely it has 
just views of the surface of life, and a very 
sprightly manner. His opinion of "The 
World," was not much higher than of "The 
Connoisseur." 

Let me here apologise for the imperfect 
manner in which I am obliged to exhibit 
Johnson's conversation at this period. In the 
early part of my acquaintance with him, I 
was so wrapt in admiral ion of his extraordinary 
Colloquial talents, and SO little accustomed 

to his peculiar mode of expression, that I 
found it extremely difficult to recollect and 

record his conversation with its genuine 
vigour and vivacity. In progress of time, when 
my mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated 
7viih tin- Johnsonian (filter, I could with much 
more facility and exactness, carry in my mem- 
ory and commit to paper the exuberant variety 
of his wisdom and wit. 

At this time Miss Williams, as she was then 
called, though she did not reside with him in 
the Temple under his roof, but had lodgings 



in Holt court, Fleet street, had so much of his 
attention, thai he every night drank tea with 
her before he went home, however late il 
might be, and she always sal up for him. 
This it may be fairly conjectured, was not 
alone a proof of his regard for her, but of his 
own unwillingness to go into solitude, before 
that unseasonable hour at which he had habilu 
aled himself lo expect the oblivion of repose. 
Dr. Goldsmith, being a privileged man, wenl 
with him this night, strutting away, and call- 
ing to me with an air of superiority, like that 
ol an esoteric over an exoteric disciple of a 
sage of antiquity, "I go to Miss Williams." 
I confess, I then envied him this mighty privi 
lege, of which he seemed so proud; but il was 
not long before 1 obtained the same mark of 

distinction. 

( >n Tuesday, the 5U1 of July, T again visited 
Johnson, lie told me he had looked into the 
poems of a pretty voluminous writer, Mr. 
(now Dr.) John Ogilvie, one of the Presby- 
terian ministers of Scotland, which had lately 
come out, bul could find no thinking in them. 
Boswell: "Is there nol imagination in them, 
Sir?" Johnson: "Why, Sir, there is in them 
what was imagination, bul it is no more 
imagination in him, than sound is sound in 
the echo. And his die I ion too is nol his own. 
We have long ago seen white robed innocence 
and flower bespangled meads." 

Talking of London, he observed, "Sir, if 
you wish to have a just notion of the magni- 
tude of this city, you must nol be satisfied 
with seeing its greal streets and squares, bul 
must survey the innumerable little lanes and 
courts. It is nol in the showy evolutions of 
buildings, but in the multiplicity of human 
habitations which are crowded together, that 
the wonderful immensity of London consists." 
-—I have often amused myself with thinking 
how different a. place London is to different 
people. They, whose narrow minds arc ion 

1 railed lo the consideration of some one par- 
ticular pursuit, view it only through I hat 
medium. A politician thinks of it merely as 
the seal of government in its different deparl 
ments; a. grazier, as a. vast market for cattle; 
a mercantile man, as a place where a pro 
digioUS deal of business is done upon 'Change; 
a dramatic enthusiast, as the grand scene of 
theatrical entertainments; a man of pleasure, 

as an assemblage of taverns, and llie great 
emporium for ladies of easy virtue. Hul I he 
intellectual man is struck, with il, as compre 
bending the whole of human life in all its 



j So 



JAMES BOSWELL 



variety, the contemplation of which is inex- 
haustible. 

On Wednesday, July 6, he was engaged to 
sup with me at my Lodgings in Downing-street, 
Westminster. But on the preceding night my 
landlord having behaved very rudely to me 
and sonic company who were with me, I had 
resolved not to remain another night in his 
house. I was exceedingly uneasy at the awk- 
ward appearance 1 supposed I should make to 
Johnson and the other gentlemen whom I had 
invited, not being able to receive them at 
home, and being obliged to order supper at 
the Mitre. 1 went to Johnson in the morn- 
ing, and talked of it as of a serious distress. 
lie laughed, and said, "Consider, Sir, how 
insignificant this will appear a twelvemonth 
hence."' Were this consideration to he applied 
to most of the little vexatious incidents of life, 
by which our quiet is loo often disturbed, it 
would prevent many painful sensations. I 
have tried it frequently with good effect. 
'•There is nothing," continued he, "in this 
mighty misfortune; nay, we shall he better at 
the Mitre." I told him that 1 had been at 
Sir |ohn Fielding's o[\nw complaining of my 
landlord, and had been informed that though 
1 had taken my lodgings for a year, I might, 
upon proof of his had behaviour, quit them 
when 1 pleased, without being under an obliga- 
tion to pay rent for any longer time than while 
1 possessed them. The fertility of Johnson's 
mind could show itself even upon so small a 
matter as this. "Why, Sir," said he, "I sup- 
pose this must he the law, since you have keen 
told so in How street, hut if your landlord 
could hold you to your bargain, and the 
lodgings should he yours for a year, you may 
certainly use them as you think tit. So, Sir, 
you may quarter two life-guardsmen upon 
him ; or you may .send the greatest scoundrel 
yon can find into your apartments; or you 
may say that you want to make some experi- 
ments in natural philosophy, and may hum a 
large quantity of asafoetida in his house." 

1 had as my guests this evening at the 
Mitre Tavern, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Goldsmith, 
Mr. Thomas Davies, Mr. Eccles, an Irish 
gentleman, for whose agreeable company I 
was obliged to Mr. Davies, and the Rev. Mr. 
John Ogilvie, who was desirous of being in 
company with my illustrious friend, while I, 
in my turn, was proud to have the honour of 
showing one of my countrymen upon what 
easy terms Johnson permitted me to live with 
him. 



Goldsmith, as usual, endeavoured with too 
much eagerness to shine ami disputed very 
warmly with Johnson against the well known 
maxim of the British constitution, "the king 
can *.\ii no wrong;" affirming, that "what was 
morally false could not he politically true; 
and as the king might, in the exercise of his 
regal power, command and cause the doing of 
what was wrong, it certainly might he said, 
in sense and in reason, that he could do wrong." 
Johnson: "Sir, you are to consider that in 
our constitution, according to its true princi- 
ples, the king is the head, he is supreme; he 
is above everything, and there is no power 
by which he can he tried. Therefore, it is, 
Sir. that we hold the king can do no wrong; 
that whatever may happen to he wrong in 
government may not he above our reach by 
being ascribed to majesty. Redress is always 
to he had against oppression by punishing 
the immediate agents. The king, though he 
should command, cannot force a judge to 
condemn a man unjustly; therefore it is the 
judge whom we prosecute and punish. Po- 
litical institutions are formed upon the con- 
sideration of what will most frequently tend 
to the good of the whole, although now ami 
then exceptions may occur. Thus it is better 
in general that a nation should have a supreme 
legislative power, although it may at times he 
abused. And then, Sir, there is this considera- 
tion, that if the abuse be enormous nature -will 
rise up, and claiming her original rights, over- 
turn a eorrupt political system." I mark this 
animated sentence with peculiar pleasure, as 
a noble instance of that truly dignified spirit 
of freedom which ever glowed in his heart, 
though he was charged with slavish tenets by 
superficial observers, because he was at ail 
times indignant against that false patriotism, 
that pretended love of freedom, that unruly 
restlessness which is inconsistent with the 
stable authority of any good government. 

This generous sentiment, which he uttered 
with great fervour, struck me exceedingly, and 
Stirred my blood to that pitch of fancied re- 
sistance, the possibility of which I am glad to 
keep in mind, hut to which I trust I never 
shall he forced. 

"Great abilities," said he, "are not requisite 
for an historian; for in historical composition 
all the greatest powers of the human mind are 
quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand, 
so there is no exercise of invention. Imagina- 
tion is not required in any high degree; only 
about as much as is used in the lower kinds 



THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 



281 



of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and 
colouring, will fit a man for the task, if he 
can give the application which is necessary." 

'"Bayle's Dictionary' is a very useful work 
for those to consult who love the biographical 
part of literature, which is what I love most." 

Talking of the eminent writers in Queen 
Anne's reign, he observed, "I think Dr. 
Arbuthnot the first man among them. He 
was the most universal genius, being an excel- 
lent physician, a man of deep learning, and a 
man of much humour. Mr. Addison was, to 
be sure, a great man; his learning was not 
profound, but his morality, his humour, and 
his elegance of writing set him very high." 

Mr. Ogilvie was unlucky enough to choose 
for the topic of his conversation the praises of 
his native country. He began with saying, 
that there was very rich land around Edin- 
burgh. Goldsmith, who had studied physic 
there, contradicted this, very untruly, with a 
sneering laugh. Disconcerted a little by this, 
Mr. Ogilvie then took a new ground, where, 
I suppose, he thought himself perfectly safe; 
for he observed, that Scotland had a great 
many noble wild prospects. Johnson: "I 
believe, Sir, you have a great many. Norway, 
too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland 
is remarkable for prodigious noble wild pros- 
pects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest 
prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the 
high-road that leads him to England!" This 
unexpected and pointed sally produced a roar 
of applause. After all, however, those who 
admire the rude grandeur of nature cannot 
deny it to Caledonia. 

On Saturday, July 9, I found Johnson sur- 
rounded with a numerous levee, but have not 
preserved any part of his conversation. On 
the 14th we had another evening by ourselves 
at the Mitre. It happened to be a very rainy 
night; I made some commonplace observations 
on the relaxation of nerves and depression of 
spirits which such weather occasioned; add- 
ing, however, that it was good for the vege- 
table creation. Johnson, who, as we have 
already seen, denied that the temperature of 
the air had any influence on the human frame, 
answered, with a smile of ridicule, "Why, yes, 
Sir, it is good for vegetables, and for the 
animals who eat those vegetables, and for the 
animals who eat those animals." This obser- 
vation of his, aptly enough introduced a good 
supper and I soon forgot, in Johnson's com- 
pany, the influence of a moist atmosphere. 

Feeling myself now quite at ease as his com- 



panion, though I had all possible reverence 
for him, I expressed a regret that I could not 
be so easy with my father, though he was not 
much older than Johnson, and certainly, how- 
ever respectable, had not more learning and 
greater abilities to depress me. I asked him 
the reason of this. Johnson: "Why, Sir, I 
am a man of the world. I live in the world, 
and I take, in some degree, the colour of the 
world as it moves along. Your father is a 
judge in a remote part of the island, and all 
his notions are taken from the old world. 
Besides, Sir, there must always be a struggle 
between a father and son, while one aims at 
power and the other at independence." I 
said, I was afraid my father would force me 
to be a lawyer. Johnson: "Sir, you need 
not be afraid of his forcing you to be a laborious 
practising lawyer; that is not in his power. 
For, as the proverb says, 'One man may lead 
a horse to the water, but twenty cannot make 
him drink.' He may be displeased that you 
are not what he wishes you to be; but that 
displeasure will not go far. If he insists only 
on your having as much law as is necessary 
for a man of property, and then endeavours 
to get you into parliament, he is quite in the 
right." 

He enlarged very convincingly upon the 
excellence of rhyme over blank verse in Eng- 
lish poetry. I mentioned to him that Dr. 
Adam Smith, in his lectures upon composition, 
when I studied under him in the College of 
Glasgow, had maintained the same opinion 
strenuously, and I repeated some of his argu- 
ments. Johnson: "Sir, I was once in com- 
pany with Smith, and we did not take to each 
other; but had I known that he loved rhyme 
as much as you tell me he does, I should have 
hugged him." 

Talking of those who denied the truth of 
Christianity, he said, "It is always easy to be 
on the negative side. If a man were now to 
deny that there is salt upon the table, you 
could not reduce him to an absurdity. Come, 
let us try this a little further. I deny that 
Canada is taken, and I can support my denial 
by pretty good arguments. The French are a 
much more numerous people than we; and it 
is not likely that they would allow us to take 
it. 'But the ministry have assured us, in all 
the formality of the Gazette, that it is taken.' 
— Very true. But the ministry have put us 
to an enormous expense by the war in America, 
and it is their interest to persuade us that we 
have got something for our money. — 'But 



282 



JAMES BOSWELL 



the fact is confirmed by thousands of men 
who were at the taking of it.' — Ay, but these 
men have still more interest in deceiving us. 
They don't want that you should think the 
French have beat them, but that they have 
beat the French. Now suppose you should 
go over and find that it really is taken, that 
would only satisfy yourself; for when you 
come home we will not believe you. We will 
say, you have been bribed. — Yet, Sir, not- 
withstanding all these plausible objections, we 
have no doubt that Canada is really ours. 
Such is the weight of common testimony. 
How much stronger are the evidences of the 
Christian religion?" 

"Idleness is a disease which must be com- 
bated; but I would not advise a rigid ad- 
herence to a particular plan of study. I my- 
self have never persisted in any plan for two 
days together. A man ought to read just as 
inclination leads him ; for what he reads as a 
task will do him little good. A young man 
should read five hours in a day, and so may 
acquire a great deal of knowledge." 

To a man of vigorous intellect and ardent 
curiosity like his own, reading without a regu- 
lar plan may be beneficial; though even such 
a man must submit to it, if he would attain a 
full understanding of any of the sciences. 

To such a degree of unrestrained frankness 
had he now accustomed me that in the course 
of this evening I talked of the numerous 
reflections which had been thrown out against 
him, on account of his having accepted a pen- 
sion from his present Majesty. "Why, Sir," 
said he, with a hearty laugh, "it is a mighty 
foolish noise that they make. I have accepted 
of a pension as a reward which has been 
thought due to my literary merit; and now 
that I have this pension, I am the same man 
in every respect that I have ever been; I re- 
tain the same principles. It is true, that I 
cannot now curse (smiling) the house of Han- 
over; nor would it be decent for me to drink 
King James's health in the wine that King 
George gives me money to pay for. But, Sir, 
I think that the pleasure of cursing the house 
of Hanover, and drinking King James's 
health, are amply overbalanced by three hun- 
dred pounds a year." 

There was here, most certainly, an affecta- 
tion of more Jacobitism than he really had; 
and indeed an intention of admitting, for the 
moment, in a much greater extent than it 
really existed, the charge of disaffection im- 
puted to him by the world, merely for the pur- 



pose of showing how dexterously he could 
repel an attack, even though he were placed 
in the most disadvantageous position; for I 
have heard him declare, that if holding up his 
right hand would have secured victory at 
Culloden to Prince Charles's army, he was 
not sure he would have held it up; so little 
confidence had he in the right claimed by the 
house of Stuart, and so fearful was he of 
the consequences of another revolution on the 
throne of Great Britain; and Mr. Topham 
Beauclerk assured me, he had heard him say 
this before he had his pension. At another 
time he said to Mr. Langton, "Nothing has 
ever offered, that has made it worth my while 
to consider the question fully." He, however, 
also said to the same gentleman, talking of 
King James the Second, "It was become im- 
possible for him to reign any longer in this 
country." He no doubt had an early attach- 
ment to the house of Stuart; but his zeal had 
cooled as his reason strengthened. Indeed I 
heard him once say, "that after the death of a 
violent Whig, with whom he used to contend 
with great eagerness, he felt his Toryism much 
abated." I suppose he meant Mr. Walmesley. 

Yet there is no doubt that at earlier periods 
he was wont often to exercise both his pleas- 
antry and ingenuity in talking Jacobitism. 
My much respected friend, Dr. Douglas, now 
Bishop of Salisbury, has favoured me with 
the following admirable instance from his 
lordship's own recollection : — One day when 
dining at old Mr. Langton's, where Miss 
Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, 
Johnson, with his usual complacent attention 
to the fair sex, took her by the hand and said, 
"My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite." Old 
Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady 
Tor)', was attached to the present royal family, 
seemed offended, and asked Johnson, with 
great warmth, what he could mean by put- 
ting such a question to his niece? "Why, Sir," 
said Johnson, "I meant no offence to your 
niece, I meant her a great compliment. A 
Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right of 
kings. He that believes in the divine right of 
kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite be- 
lieves in the divine right of bishops. He that 
believes in the divine right of bishops, believes 
in the divine authority of the Christian religion. 
Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist 
nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig; 
for Whiggism is a negation of all principle." 

He advised me, when abroad, to be as 
much as I could with the professors in the 



THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 



283 



Universities, and with the clergy; for from 
their conversation I might expect the best 
accounts of everything in whatever country I 
should be, with the additional advantage of 
keeping my learning alive. 

It will be observed, that when giving me 
advice as to my travels, Dr. Johnson did not 
dwell upon cities, and palaces, and pictures, 
and shows, and Arcadian scenes. He was of 
Lord Essex's opinion, who advises his kins- 
man, Roger Earl of Rutland, "rather to go a 
hundred miles to speak with one wise man, 
than five miles to see a fair town." 

I described to him an impudent fellow from 
Scotland, who affected to be a savage, and 
railed at all established systems. Johnson: 
"There is nothing surprising in this, Sir. He 
wants to make himself conspicuous. He would 
tumble in a hog-sty, as long as you looked at 
him and called to him to come out. But let 
him alone, never mind him, and he'll soon 
give it over." 

I added that the same person maintained 
that there was no distinction between virtue 
and vice. Johnson: "Why, Sir, if the fellow 
does not think as he speaks, he is lying; and 
I see not what honour he can propose to him- 
self from having the character of a liar. But 
if he does really think that there is no distinc- 
tion between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when 
he leaves our houses let us count our spoons." 

Sir David Dalrymple, now one of the judges 
of Scotland by the title of Lord Hailes, had 
contributed much to increase my high opinion 
of Johnson, on account of his writings, long 
before I attained to a personal acquaintance 
with him ; I, in return, had informed Johnson 
of Sir David's eminent character for learn- 
ing and religion ; and Johnson was so much 
pleased, that at one of our evening meetings 
he gave him for his toast. I at this time kept 
up a very frequent correspondence with Sir 
David; and I read to Dr. Johnson to-night 
the following passage from the letter which I 
had last received from him: 

" It gives me pleasure to think that you have ob- 
tained the friendship of Mr. Samuel Johnson. He 
is one of the best moral writers which England has 
produced. At the same time, I envy you the free 
and undisguised converse with such a man. May I 
beg you to present my best respects to him, and to 
assure him of the veneration which I entertain for 
the author of the ' Rambler ' and of ' Rasselas ' ? 
Let me recommend this last work to you; with the 
'Rambler' you certainly are acquainted. In 'Ras- 
selas ' you will see a tender-hearted operator, who 



probes the wound only to heal it. Swift, on the con- 
trary, mangles human nature. He cuts and slashes 
as if he took pleasure in the operation, like the 
tyrant who said, Itaferi ul se sentiat emori." 1 

Johnson seemed to be much gratified by 
this just and well-turned compliment. 

He recommended to me to keep a journal 
of my life, full and unreserved. He said it 
would be a very good exercise, and would 
yield me great satisfaction when the particu- 
lars were faded from my remembrance. I 
was uncommonly fortunate in having had a 
previous coincidence of opinion with him upon 
this subject, for I had kept such a journal for 
some time; and it was no small pleasure to 
me to have this to tell him, and to receive 
his approbation. He counselled me to keep 
it private, and said I might surely have a 
friend who would burn it in case of my death. 
From this habit I have been enabled to give 
the world so many anecdotes, which would 
otherwise have been lost to posterity. I men- 
tioned that I was afraid I put into my journal 
too many little incidents. Johnson: "There 
is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature 
as man. It is by studying little things that 
we attain the great art of having as little misery 
and as much happiness as possible." 

Next morning Mr. Dempster happened to 
call on me, and was so much struck even with 
the imperfect account which I gave him of 
Dr. Johnson's conversation, that to his honour 
be it recorded, when I complained of drink- 
ing port and sitting up late with him, affected 
my nerves for some time after, he said, "One 
had better be palsied at eighteen than not 
keep company with such a man." 

On Tuesday, July 18, I found tall Sir 
Thomas Robinson sitting with Johnson. Sir 
Thomas said, that the King of Prussia valued 
himself upon three things; upon being a hero, 
a musician, and an author. Johnson: "Pretty 
well, Sir, for one man. As to his being an 
author, I have not looked at his poetry; but 
his prose is poor stuff. He writes just as you 
may suppose Voltaire's footboy to do, who 
has been his amanuensis. He has such parts 
as the valet might have, and about as much 
of the colouring of the style as might be got 
by transcribing his works." When I was at 
Ferney, I repeated this to Voltaire, in order 
to reconcile him somewhat to Johnson, whom 
he, in affecting the English mode of expres- 

1 Strike in such a way that he may feel the pangs of 
death. 



284 



JAMES BOSWELL 



sion, had previously characterised as "a super- 
stitious dog " ; but after hearing such a criticism 
on Frederick the Great, with whom he was 
then on bad terms, he exclaimed, "An honest 
fellow!" 

But I think the criticism much too severe; 
for the "Memoirs of the House of Branden- 
burgh" are written as well as many works of 
that kind. His poetry, for the style of which 
he himself makes a frank apology, "jargomumi 
101 Francois barbare" though fraught with 
pernicious ravings of infidelity, has in many 
places, great animation, and in some a pathetic 
tenderness. 

Upon this contemptuous animadversion on 
the King of Prussia, I observed to Johnson, 
"It would seem then. Sir, that much less parts 
are necessary to make a king, than to make 
an author: for the King of Prussia is con- 
fessedly the greatest king now in Europe, yet 
you think he makes a very poor figure as an 
author." 

Mr. Levett this day showed me Dr. John- 
son's library, which was contained in two 
garrets over his chambers, where Lintot, son 
of the celebrated bookseller of that name, had 
formerly his warehouse. I found a numlx^r 
of good books, but very dusty and in great 
confusion. The floor was strewed with manu- 
script leaves, in Johnson's own handwriting, 
which I beheld with a degree of veneration, 
supposing they perhaps might contain por- 
tions of the "Rambler," or of "Rasselas." I 
observed an apparatus for chemical experi- 
ments, of which Johnson was all his life very 
fond. The place seemed to be very favour- 
able for retirement and meditation. Johnson 
told me, that he went up thither without men- 
tioning it to his servant when he wanted to 
study, secure from interruption; for he would 
not allow his servant to say he was not at 
home when he really was. "A servant's strict 
regard for truth," said he, "must be weakened 
by such a practice. A philosopher may know 
that it is merely a form of denial; but few 
servants are such nice distinguishers. If I ac- 
custom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I 
not reason to apprehend that he will tell many 
lies for himscift" I am, however, satisfied 
that every servant, of any degree of intelli- 
gence, understands saying his master is not at 
home, not at all as the affirmation of a fact, 
but as customary words, intimating that his 
master wish.es not to be seen ; so that there 
can be no bad effect from it. 

Mr. Temple, now vicar of St. Gluvias, 



Cornwall, who had been my intimate friend 
for many years, had at this time chambers in 
Farrar's buildings, at the bottom of inner 
Temple-lane, which he kindly lent me upon 
my quitting my lodgings, he being to return 
to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. I found them 
particularly convenient for me, as they were 
so near Dr. Johnson's. 

On Wednesday, July 20, Dr. Johnson, Mr. 
Dempster, and my uncle, Dr. Boswell, who 
happened to be now in London, supped with 
me at these chambers. Johnson: "Pity is not 
natural to man. Children are always cruel. 
Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired 
and improved by the cultivation of reason. 
We may have uneasy sensations from seeing 
a creature in distress, without pity: for we 
have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. 
When I am on my way to dine with a friend, 
and finding it late, have bid the coachman 
make haste, if I happen to attend when he 
whips his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that 
the animals are put to pain, but I do not wish 
him to desist. Xo, Sir, I wish him to drive 
on." 

Mr. Alexander Donaldson, bookseller of 
Edinburgh, had for some time opened a shop 
in London, and sold his cheap editions of the 
most popular Fnglish books, in defiance of 
the supposed common -law right of Literary 
Property. Johnson, though he concurred in 
the opinion which was afterwards sanctioned 
by a judgment of the House of Lords, that 
there was no such right, was at - this time 
very angry that the booksellers of London, tor 
whom he uniformly professed much regard, 
should suffer from an invasion of what they 
had ever considered to be secure; and he 
was loud and violent against Mr. Donaldson. 
"He is a fellow who takes advantage of the 
law to injure his brethren; for, notwithstand- 
ing that the statute secures only fourteen years 
of exclusive right, it has always been under- 
stood by the trade, that he who buys the copy- 
right of a book from the author obtains a 
perpetual property; and upon that belief, num- 
berless bargains are made to transfer that 
property after the expiration of the statutory 
term. Now, Donaldson, I say, takes ad- 
vantage here, of people who have really an 
equitable title from usage; and if we consider 
how few of the books, of which they buy the 
property, succeed so well as to bring profit, 
we should be of opinion that the term of 
fourteen years is too short ; it should be sixty 
years." Dempster: "Donaldson, Sir. is anxious 



THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 



285 



for the encouragement of literature. He re- 
duces the price of books, so that poor students 
may buy them." Johnson (laughing) : "Well, 
Sir, allowing that to be his motive, he is no 
better than Robin Hood, who robbed the rich 
in order to give to the poor." 

It is remarkable, that when the great ques- 
tion concerning Literary Property came to be 
ultimately tried before the supreme tribunal 
of this country, in consequence of the very 
spirited exertions of Mr. Donaldson, Dr. 
Johnson was zealous against a perpetuity; 
but he thought that the term of the exclu- 
sive right of authors should be considerably 
enlarged. He was then for granting a hun- 
dred years. 

The conversation now turned upon Mr. 
David Hume's style. Johnson: "Why, Sir, 
his style is not English; the structure of his 
sentences is French. Now the French struc- 
ture and the English structure may, in the 
nature of things, be equally good. But if you 
allow that the English language is established, 
he is wrong. My name might originally have 
been Nicholson, as well as Johnson; but were 
you to call me Nicholson now, you would call 
me very absurdly." 

Rousseau's treatise on the inequality of 
mankind was at this time a fashionable topic. 
It gave rise to an observation by Mr. Demp- 
ster, that the advantages of fortune and rank 
were nothing to a wise man, who ought to 
value only merit. Johnson: "If man were a 
savage, living in the woods by himself, this 
might be true; but in civilised society we all 
depend upon each other and our happiness is 
very much owing to the good opinion of man- 
kind. Now, Sir, in civilised society, external 
advantages make us more respected. A man 
with a good coat upon his back meets with a 
better reception than he who has a bad one. 
Sir, you may analyse this and say what is there 
in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it 
is part of a general system. Pound St. Paul's 
church into atoms, and consider any single 
atom; it is, to be sure, good for nothing; but 
put all these atoms together and you have 
St. Paul's church. So it is with human 
felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, 
each of which may be shown to be very in- 
significant. In civilised society personal merit 
will not serve you so much as money will. 
Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into 
the street and give one man a lecture on 
morality and another a shilling, and see which 
will respect you most. If you wish only to sup- 



port nature, Sir William Petty fixes your allow- 
ance at three pounds a year; but as times are 
much altered, let us call it six pounds. This 
sum will fill your belly, shelter you from the 
weather, and even get you a strong lasting 
coat, supposing it to be made of good bull's 
hide. Now, Sir, all beyond this is artificial, 
and is desired in order to obtain a greater 
degree of respect from our fellow-creatures. 
And, Sir, if six hundred pounds a year procure 
a man more consequence, and, of course, more 
happiness than six pounds a year, the same 
proportion will hold as to six thousand, and 
so on, as far as opulence can be carried. Per- 
haps he who has a large fortune may not be 
so happy as he who has a small one; but that 
must proceed from other causes than from his 
having the large fortune: for, caeteris paribus, 
he who is rich in a civilised society must be 
happier than he who is poor; as riches, if 
properly used, (and it is a man's own fault if 
they are not,) must be productive of the 
highest advantages. Money, to be sure, of 
itself is of no use: for its only use is to part 
with it. Rousseau, and all those who deal in 
paradoxes, are led away by a childish desire 
of novelty. When I was a boy I used always 
to choose the wrong side of a debate, because 
most ingenious things, that is to say, most new 
things, could be said upon it. Sir, there is 
nothing for which you may not muster up 
more plausible arguments than those which 
are urged against wealth and other external 
advantages. Why, now, there is stealing: 
why should it be thought a crime? When 
we consider by what unjust methods property 
has been often acquired, and that what was 
unjustly got it must be unjust to keep, where 
is the harm in one man's taking the property 
of another from him? Besides, Sir, when we 
consider the bad use that many people make 
of their property, and how much better use 
the thief may make of it, it may be defended 
as a very allowable practice. Yet, Sir, the ex- 
perience of mankind has discovered stealing 
to be so very bad a thing that they make no 
scruple to hang a man for it. When I was 
running about this town a very poor fellow, I 
was a great arguer for the advantages of 
poverty; but I was, at the same time, very 
sorry to be poor. Sir, all the arguments 
which are brought to represent poverty as no 
evil, show it to be evidently a great evil. You 
never find people labouring to convince you 
* that you may live very happily upon a plenti- 
ful fortune. — So you hear people talking how 



2 86 



JAMES BOSWELL 



miserable a king must be, and yet they all 
wish to be in his place." 

It was suggested that kings must be un- 
happy, because they are deprived of the 
greatest of all satisfactions, easy and unre- 
served society. Johnson: "This is an ill- 
founded notion. Being a king does not ex- 
clude a man from such society. Great kings 
have always been social. The King of Prussia, 
the only great king at present, is very social. 
Charles the Second, the last king of England 
who was a man of parts, was social; and our 
Henrys and Edwards were all social." 

Mr. Dempster having endeavoured to main- 
tain that intrinsic merit ought to make the only 
distinction among mankind. Johnson: "Why, 
Sir, mankind have found that this cannot be. 
How shall we determine the proportion of 
intrinsic merit? Were that to be the only 
distinction amongst mankind, we should soon 
quarrel about the degrees of it. Were all 
distinctions abolished, the strongest would not 
long acquiesce, but would endeavour to obtain 
a superiority by their bodily strength. But, 
Sir, as subordination is very necessary for 
society, and contentions for superiority very 
dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all civilised 
nations, have settled it upon a plain invariable 
principle. A man is born to hereditary rank; 
or his being appointed to certain offices gives 
him a certain rank. Subordination tends 
greatly to human happiness. Were we all 
upon an equality, we should have no other 
enjoyment than mere animal pleasure." 

I said, I considered distinction or rank to 
be of so much importance in civilised society, 
that if I were asked on the same day to dine 
with the first duke in England, and with the 
first man in Britain for genius, I should hesi- 
tate which to prefer. Johnson: "To be sure, 
Sir, if you were to dine only once, and it were 
never to be known where you dined, you 
would choose rather to dine with the first 
man for genius; but to gain most respect, you 
should dine with the first duke in England. 
For nine people in ten that you meet with, 
would have a higher opinion of you for having 
dined with a duke; and the great genius him- 
self would receive you better, because you had 
been with the great duke." 

He took rare to guard himself against any 
possible suspicion that his settled principles 
of reverence for rank and respect for wealth 
were at all owing to mean or interested motives; 
for he asserted his own independence as a 
literary man. " No man," said he, " who ever 



lived by literature, has lived more indepen- 
dently than I have done." He said he had 
taken longer time than he needed to have 
done in composing his Dictionary. He re- 
ceived our compliments upon that great work 
with complacency, and told us that the Academy 
ddla Crusca could scarcely believe that it was 
done by one man. 

Next morning I found him alone, and have 
preserved the following fragments of his con- 
versation. Of a gentleman who was men- 
tioned, he said, "I have not met with any 
man for a long time who has given me such 
general displeasure. He is totally unfixed in 
his principles, and wants to puzzle other 
people." I said his principles had been 
poisoned by a noted infidel writer, but that 
he was, nevertheless, a benevolent, good man. 
Johnson: "We can have no dependence upon 
that instinctive, that constitutional goodness, 
which is not founded upon principle. I grant 
you that such a man may be a very amiable 
member of society. I can conceive him placed 
in such a situation that he is not much tempted 
to deviate from what is right; and as every 
man prefers virtue, when there is not some 
strong incitement to transgress its precepts, I 
can conceive him doing nothing wrong. But 
if such a man stood in need of money, I should 
not like to trust him; and I should certainly 
not trust him with young ladies, for there, 
there is always temptation. Hume, and other 
sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will 
gratify themselves at any expense. ' Truth will 
not afford sufficient food to their vanity: so 
they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, 
Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no 
more milk, and so they are gone to milk the 
bull. If I could have allowed myself to 
gratify my vanity at the expense of truth, 
what fame might I have acquired ! Every- 
thing which Hume has advanced against 
Christianity had passed through my mind long 
before he wrote. Always remember this, that 
after a system is well settled upon positive 
evidence, a few partial objections ought not 
to shake it. The human mind is so limited, 
that it cannot take in all the parts of a sub- 
ject, so that there may be objections raised 
against anything. There are objections against 
a plenum, and objections against a vacuum; 
yet one of them must certainly be true." 

I mentioned Hume's argument against the 
belief of miracles, that it is more probable that 
the witnesses to the truth of them are mistaken, 
or speak falsely, than that the miracles should 



THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 



287 



be true. Johnson: "Why, Sir, the great dif- 
ficulty of proving miracles should make us 
very cautious in believing them. But let us 
consider; although God has made Nature to 
operate by certain fixed laws, yet it is not un- 
reasonable to think that he may suspend those 
laws, in order to establish a system highly 
advantageous to mankind. Now the Chris- 
tian religion is a most beneficial system, as 
it gives us light and certainty where we were 
before in darkness and doubt. The miracles 
which prove it are attested by men who had 
no interest in deceiving us; but who, on the 
contrary, were told that they should suffer per- 
secution, and did actually lay down their lives 
in confirmation of the truth of the facts which 
they asserted. Indeed, for some centuries the 
heathens did not pretend to deny the miracles; 
but said they were performed by the aid of evil 
spirits. This is a circumstance of great weight. 
Then, Sir, when we take the proofs derived 
from prophecies which have been so exactly 
fulfilled, we have most satisfactory evidence. 
Supposing a miracle possible, as to which, in 
my opinion, there can be no doubt, we have as 
strong evidence for the miracles in support of 
Christianity as the nature of the thing admits." 

At night, Mr. Johnson and I supped in a 
private room at the Turk's Head coffee-house, 
in the Strand. "I encourage this house," said 
he, " for the mistress of it is a good civil woman, 
and has not much business." 

"Sir, I love the acquaintance of young people ; 
because, in the first place, I don't like to think 
myself growing old. In the next place, young 
acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; 
and then, Sir, young men have more virtue 
than old men ; they have more generous senti- 
ments in every respect. I love the young dogs 
of this age; they have more wit and humour 
and knowledge of life than we had; but then 
the dogs are not so good scholars. Sir, in my 
early years I read very hard. It is a sad re- 
flection, but a true one, that I knew almost as 
much at eighteen as I do now. My judgment, 
to be sure, was not so good, but I had all the 
facts. I remember very well when I was at 
Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, 'Young 
man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire 
a stock of knowledge; for when years come 
upon you, you will find that poring upon books 
will be but an irksome task.' " 

This account of his reading, given by him- 
self in plain words, sufficiently confirms what I 
have already advanced upon the disputed ques- 
tion as to his application. It reconciles any 



seeming inconsistency in his way of talking 
upon it at different times; and shows that 
idleness and reading hard were with him rela- 
tive terms, the import of which, as used by him, 
must be gathered from a comparison with what 
scholars of different degrees of ardour and as- 
siduity have been known to do. And let it be 
remembered that he was now talking sponta- 
neously, and expressing his genuine sentiments; 
whereas at other times he might be induced from 
his spirit of contradiction, or more properly from 
his love of argumentative contest, to speak lightly 
of his own application to study. It is pleasing 
to consider that the old gentleman's gloomy 
prophecy as to the irksomeness of books to men 
of an advanced age, which is too often fulfilled, 
was so far from being verified in Johnson, that 
his ardour for literature never failed, and his 
last writings had more ease and vivacity than 
any of his earlier productions. 

He mentioned to me now, for the first time, 
that he had been distressed by melancholy, 
and for that reason had been obliged to fly 
from study and meditation, to the dissipat- 
ing variety of life. Against melancholy he 
recommended constant occupation of mind, 
a great deal of exercise, moderation in eating 
and drinking, and especially to shun drinking 
at night. He said melancholy people were apt 
to fly to intemperance for relief, but that it sunk 
them much deeper in misery. He observed, 
that labouring men who work hard, and live 
sparingly, are seldom or never troubled with 
low spirits. 

He again insisted on the duty of maintaining 
subordination of rank. "Sir, I would no more 
deprive a nobleman of his respect than of his 
money. I consider myself as acting a part in 
the great system of society, and I do to others 
as I would have them do to me. I would 
behave to a nobleman as I should expect he 
would behave to me, were I a nobleman, and 
he Sam. Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. 
Macaulay, in this town, a great republican. 
One day when I was at her house, I put on 
a very grave countenance, and said to her, 
'Madam, I am now become a convert to your 
way of thinking. I am convinced that all man- 
kind are upon an equal footing; and to give 
you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I 
am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well- 
behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire 
that he may be allowed to sit down and dine 
with us.' I thus, Sir, showed her the absurdity 
of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked 
me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level down 



288 



JAMES BOSWELL 



as far as themselves; but they cannot bear 
levelling up to themselves. They would all 
have some people under them; why not then 
have some people above them?" 

I mentioned a certain author who disgusted 
me by his forwardness, and by showing no 
deference to noblemen into whose company 
he was admitted. Johnson: " Suppose a shoe- 
maker should claim an equality with him, as he 
does with a lord: how lie would stare. 'Why, 
Sir, do you stare?' says the shoemaker, 'I do 
great service to society. 'Tis true I am paid 
for doing it; but so are you, Sir; and I am 
sorry to say it, better paid than I am, for doing 
something not so necessary. For mankind 
could do better without your books than with- 
out my shoes.' Thus, Sir, there would be 
perpetual struggle for precedence, were there 
no fixed invariable rules for the distinction of 
rank, which creates no jealousy, as it is allowed 
to be accidental.'' 

He said Dr. Joseph Warton was a very agree- 
able man, and his "Essay on the Genius and 
Writings of Pope" a very pleasing book. I 
wondered that he delayed so long to give us 
the continuation of it. Johnson: "Why, 
Sir, I suppose he finds himself a little disap- 
pointed in not having been able to persuade the 
world to be of his opinion as to Pope." 

We have now been favoured with the con- 
cluding volume, in which, to use a parliamen- 
tary expression, he has explained, so as not to 
appear quite so adverse to the opinion of the 
world, concerning Pope, as was at first thought ; 
and we must all agree that his work is a most 
valuable accession to English literature. 

A writer of deserved eminence being men- 
tioned, Johnson said, ''Why, Sir, he is a man 
of good parts, but being originally poor, he has 
got a love of mean company and low jocularity; 
a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh is good, and 
to talk is good. But you ought no more to 
think it enough if you laugh, than you are to 
think it enough if you talk. You may laugh 
in as many ways as you talk; and surely every 
way of talking that is practised cannot be 
esteemed." 

I spoke of Sir James Macdonald as a young 
man of most distinguished merit, who united 
the highest reputation at Eton and Oxford, 
with the patriarchal spirit of a great Highland 
chieftain. I mentioned that Sir James had said 
to me, that he had never seen Mr. Johnson, 
but he had a great respect for him, though 
at the same time it was mixed with some 
degree of terror. Johnson: "Sir, if he were 



to be acquainted with me, it might lessen 
both." 

The mention of this gentleman led us to 
talk of the Western Islands of Scotland, to 
visit which he expressed a wish that then ap- 
peared to me a very romantic fancy, which I 
little thought would be afterwards realised. 
He told me that his father had put Martin's 
account of those islands into his hands when he 
was very young, and that he was highly pleased 
with it; that he was particularly struck with 
the St. Kilda man's notion that the high church 
of Glasgow had been hollowed out of a rock; 
a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had 
directed his attention. He said he would go 
to the Hebrides with me when I returned from 
my travels, unless some very good companion 
should offer when I was absent, which he did 
not think probable; adding, "There are few 
people whom I take so much to as you." And 
when I talked of my leaving England, he said 
with a very affectionate air, "My dear Boswell, 
I should lie very unhappy at parting, did I 
think we were not to meet again." I cannot 
too often remind my readers, that although 
such instances of his kindness are doubtless 
very flattering to me, yet I hope my recording 
them will be ascribed to a better motive than to 
vanity; for they afford unquestionable evidence 
of his tenderness and complacency, which some, 
while they are forced to acknowledge his great 
powers, have been so strenuous to deny. 

He maintained that a boy at school was 
the happiest of human beings. I supported a 
different opinion, from which I have never yet 
varied, that a man is happier; and I enlarged 
upon the anxiety and sufferings which are 
endured at school. Johnson: "Ah, Sir, a 
boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's 
having the hiss of the world against him. Men 
have a solicitude about fame; and the greater 
share they have of it, the more afraid they are 
of losing it." I silently asked myself, "Is it 
possible that the great Samuel Johnson really 
entertains any such apprehension, and is not 
confident that his exalted fame is established 
upon a foundation never to be shaken ?" 

He this evening drank a bumper to Sir David 
Dalrymple, "as a man of worth, a scholar, 
ami a wit." " I have," said he, "never heard of 
him, except from you; but let him know my 
opinion of him : for as he does not show him- 
self much in the world, he should have the 
praise of the few who hear of him." 

On Tuesday, July 26, I found Mr. Johnson 
alone. It was a very wet day, and I again 



THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 



289 



complained of the disagreeable effects of such 
weather. Johnson: "Sir, this is all imagina- 
tion, which physicians encourage; for man 
lives in air as a fish lives in water; so that if the 
atmosphere press heavy from above, there is 
an equal resistance from below. To be sure, 
bad weather is hard upon people who are 
obliged to be abroad; and men cannot labour 
so well in the open air in bad weather as in 
good; but, Sir, a smith, or a tailor, whose 
work is within doors, will surely do as much in 
rainy weather as in fair. Some very delicate 
frames, indeed, may be affected by wet weather; 
but not common constitutions." 

We talked of the education of children ; and 
I asked him what he thought was best to teach 
them first. Johnson: "Sir, it is no matter 
what you teach them first, any more than what 
leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, 
you may stand disputing which is best to put in 
first, but in the meantime your breech is bare. 
Sir, while you are considering which of two 
things you should teach your child first, an- 
other boy has learned them both." 

On Thursday, July 28, we again supped in 
private at the Turk's Head coffee-house. John- 
son: "Swift has a higher reputation than he 
deserves. His excellence is strong sense; for 
his humour, though very well, is not remark- 
ably good. I doubt whether the 'Tale of a 
Tub' be his; for he never owned it, and it is 
much above his usual manner." 

"Thomson, I think, had as much of the poet 
about him as most writers. Everything ap- 
peared to him through the medium of his 
favourite pursuit. He could not have viewed 
those two candles burning but with a poetical 
eye." 

"Has not a great deal of wit, Sir?" 

Johnson: "I do not think so, Sir. He is, in- 
deed, continually attempting wit, but he fails. 
And I have no more pleasure in hearing a 
man attempting wit and failing, than in see- 
ing a man trying to leap over a ditch and 
tumbling into it." 

He laughed heartily when I mentioned to 
him a saying of his concerning Mr. Thomas 
Sheridan, which Foote took a wicked pleasure 
to circulate. "Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, nat- 
urally dull ; but it must have taken him a great 
deal of pains to become what we now see him. 
Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Na- 
ture." — "So," said he, "I allowed him all 
his own merit." 

He now added, "Sheridan cannot bear me. 
I bring his declamation to a point. I ask him 



a plain question, ' What do you mean to teach ?' 
Besides, Sir, what influence can Mr. Sheridan 
have upon the language of this great country, 
by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a 
farthing candle at Dover, to show light at 
Calais." 

Talking of a young man who was uneasy 
from thinking that he was very deficient in 
learning and knowledge, he said, "A man has 
no reason to complain who holds a middle 
place, and has many below him; and perhaps 
he has not six of his years above him; — per- 
haps not one. Though he may not know 
anything perfectly, the general mass of know- 
ledge that he has acquired is considerable. 
Time will do for him all that is wanting." 

The conversation then took a philosophical 
turn. Johnson: "Human experience, which 
is constantly contradicting theory, is the great 
test of truth. A system built upon the dis- 
coveries of a great many minds, is always of 
more strength, than what is produced by the 
mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, 
can do little. There is not so poor a book in 
the world that would not be a prodigious effort 
were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, 
without the aid of prior investigators. The 
French writers are superficial, because they are 
not scholars, and so proceed upon the mere 
power of their own minds; and we see how 
very little power they have." 

"As to the Christian religion, Sir, besides 
the strong evidence which we have for it, there 
is a balance in its favour from the number of 
great men who have been convinced of its 
truth, after a serious consideration of the 
question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, 
a man accustomed to examine evidence, and 
he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, 
but a man of the world, who certainly had no 
bias to the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton 
set out an infidel, and came to be a very firm 
believer." 

He this evening again recommended to me 
to perambulate Spain. I said it would amuse 
him to get a letter from me dated at Salamanca. 
Johnson : " I love the University of Salamanca ; 
for when the Spaniards were in doubt as to 
the lawfulness of their conquering America, 
the University of Salamanca gave it as their 
opinion that it was not lawful." He spoke 
this with great emotion, and with that generous 
warmth which dictated the lines in his "Lon- 
don," against Spanish encroachment. 

I expressed my opinion of my friend Derrick 
as but a poor writer. Johnson: "To be sure, 



290 



JAMES BOSWELL 



Sir, he is; but you are to consider that his 
being a literary man has got for him all that 
he has. It has made him king of Bath. Sir, 
he has nothing to say for himself but that he is 
a writer. Had he not been a writer, he must 
have been sweeping the crossings in the streets, 
and asking halfpence from everybody that 
passed." 

In justice, however, to the memory of Mr. 
Derrick, who was my first tutor in the ways 
of London, and showed me the town in all 
its variety of departments, both literary and 
sportive, the particulars of which Dr. Johnson 
advised me to put in writing, it is proper to 
mention what Johnson, at a subsequent period, 
said of him both as a writer and an editor: 
"Sir, I have often said, that if Derrick's letters 
had been written by one of a more established 
name, they would have been thought very 
pretty letters." And "I sent Derrick to Dry- 
den's relations to gather materials for his life; 
and I believe he got all that I myself should 
have got." 

Poor Derrick ! I remember him with kind- 
ness. Yet I cannot withhold from my readers 
a pleasant humorous sally which could not 
have hurt him had he been alive, and now is 
perfectly harmless. In his collection of poems 
there is one upon entering the harbour of 
Dublin, his native city, after a long absence. 
It begins thus: 

" Eblana ! much loved city, hail ! 

Where first I saw the light of day." 

And after a solemn reflection on his being 
"numbered with forgotten dead," there is the 
following stanza: 

" Unless my lines protract my fame, 

And those, who chance to read them, cry, 
I knew him ! Derrick was his name, 
In yonder tomb his ashes lie — " 

which was thus happily parodied by Mr. John 
Home, to whom we owe the beautiful and 
pathetic tragedy of "Douglas": 

" Unless my deeds protract my fame, 
And lie who passes sadly sings, 
I knew him ! Derrick was his name, 
On yonder tree his carcase swings/" 

I doubt much whether the amiable and in- 
genious author of these burlesque lines will 
recollect them; for they were produced ex- 
tempore one evening while he and I were 



walking together in the dining-room at Eglin- 
toune Castle, in 1760, and I have never men- 
tioned them to him since. 

Johnson said once to me, "Sir, I honour 
Derrick for his presence of mind. One night, 
when Floyd, another poor author, was wander- 
ing about the streets in the night, he found 
Derrick fast asleep upon a bulk; upon being 
suddenly waked, Derrick started up, ' My dear 
Floyd, I am sorry to see you in this destitute 
state; will you come home with me to my 
lodgings?'" 

I again begged his advice as to my method 
of study at Utrecht. "Come," said he, "let us 
make a day of it. Let us go down to Green- 
wich and dine, and talk of it there." The 
following Saturday was fixed for this excursion. 

On Saturday, July 30, Dr. Johnson and I 
took a sculler at the Temple-stairs, and set out 
for Greenwich. I asked him if he really 
thought a knowledge of the Greek and Latin 
languages an essential requisite to a good edu- 
cation. Johnson: "Most certainly, Sir; for 
those who know them have a very great ad- 
vantage over those who do not. Nay, Sir, it 
is wonderful what a difference learning makes 
upon people even in the common intercourse 
of life, which does not appear to be much con- 
nected with it." "And yet," said I, "people 
go through the world very well and carry on 
the business of life to good advantage without 
learning." Johnson: "Why, Sir, that may be 
true in cases where learning cannot possibly 
be of any use; for instance, this boy rows us 
as well without learning, as if he could sing the 
song of Orpheus to the Argonauts, who were 
the first sailors." He then called to the boy, 
"What would you give, my lad, to know about 
the Argonauts?" "Sir," said the boy, "I 
would give what I have." Johnson was much 
pleased with his answer, and we gave him a 
double fare. Dr. Johnson then turning to me, 
"Sir," said he, "a desire of knowledge is the 
natural feeling of mankind; and every human 
being whose mind is not debauched, will be 
willing to give all that he has to get knowledge." 

We landed at the Old Swan, and walked to 
Billingsgate, where we took oars and moved 
smoothly along the silver Thames. It was a 
very fine day. We were entertained with the 
immense number and variety of ships that were 
lying at anchor, and with the beautiful country 
on each side of the river. 

I talked of preaching, and of the great 
success which those called methodists have. 
Johnson: "Sir, it is owing to their expressing 



THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 



291 



themselves in a plain and familiar manner, 
which is the only way to do good to the com- 
mon people, and which clergymen of genius 
and learning ought to do from a principle of 
duty, when it is suited to their congregations; 
a practice, for which they will be praised by 
men of sense. To insist against drunkenness 
as a crime, because it debases reason, the 
noblest faculty of man, would be of no service 
to the common people, but to tell them that 
they may die in a fit of drunkenness and show 
them how dreadful that would be, cannot fail 
to make a deep impression. Sir, when your 
Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, 
religion will soon decay in that country." Let 
this observation, as Johnson meant it, be ever 
remembered. 

I was much pleased to find myself with John- 
son at Greenwich, which he celebrates in his 
"London" as a favourite scene. I had the 
poem in my pocket, and read the lines aloud 
with enthusiasm: 

"On Thames's banks in silent thought we stood, 
Where Greenwich smiles upon the silver flood; 
Pleased with the seat which gave Eliza birth, 
We kneel, and kiss the consecrated earth." 

He remarked that the structure of Green- 
wich hospital was too magnificent for a place 
of charity, and that its parts were too much de- 
tached, to make one great whole. 

Buchanan, he said, was a very fine poet; 
and observed, that he was the first who com- 
plimented a lady, by ascribing to her the dif- 
ferent perfections of the heathen goddesses; 
but that Johnstone improved upon this, by 
making his lady, at the same time, free from 
their defects. 

He dwelt upon Buchanan's elegant verses 
to Mary Queen of Scots, Nympha Caledoniae, 
etc., and spoke with enthusiasm of the beauty 
of Latin verse. "All the modern languages," 
said he, "cannot furnish so melodious a line as 
1 Formosam resonate doces Amarillida sUvas.'" 

Afterwards he entered upon the business of 
the day, which was to give me his advice as 
to a course of study. And here I am to men- 
tion with much regret, that my record of what 
he said is miserably scanty. I recollect with 
admiration an animating blaze of eloquence, 
which roused every intellectual power in me to 
the highest pitch, but must have dazzled me so 
much that my memory could not preserve the 
substance of his discourse; for the note which 
I find of it is no more than this: — "He ran 
over the grand scale of human knowledge; 



advised me to select some particular branch to 
excel in, but to acquire a little of every kind." 
The defect of my minutes will be fully supplied 
by a long letter upon the subject, which he 
favoured me with after I had been some time 
at Utrecht, and which my readers will have the 
pleasure to peruse in its proper place. 

We walked, in the evening, in Greenwich 
Park. He asked me, I suppose, by way of 
trying my disposition, "Is not this very fine?" 
— Having no exquisite relish of the beauties 
of nature, and being more delighted with "the 
busy hum of men," I answered, "Yes, Sir, but 
not equal to Fleet-street." Johnson: "You 
are right, Sir." 

I am aware that many of my readers may 
censure my want of taste. Let me, however, 
shelter myself under the authority of a very 
fashionable baronet in the brilliant world, who, 
on his attention being called to the fragrance of 
a May evening in the country, observed, "This 
may be very well ; but for my part, I prefer 
the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse." 

We stayed so long at Greenwich, that our sail 
up the river, in our return to London, was by 
no means so pleasant as in the morning; for 
the night air was so cold that it made me shiver. 
I was the more sensible of it from having sat 
up all the night before recollecting and writing 
in my journal what I thought worthy of pres- 
ervation; an exertion which during the first 
part of my acquaintance with Johnson, I fre- 
quently made. I remember having sat up 
four nights in one week, without being much 
incommoded in the day-time. 

Johnson, whose robust frame was not in the 
least affected by the cold, scolded me, as if my 
shivering had been a paltry effeminacy, say- 
ing, "Why do you shiver?" Sir William 
Scott, of the Commons, told me that when he 
complained of a headache in the post-chaise, 
as they were travelling together to Scotland, 
Johnson treated him in the same manner: 
"At your age, Sir, I had no headache." It is 
not easy to make allowance for sensations in 
others, which we ourselves have not at the time. 
We must all have experienced how very dif- 
ferently we are affected by the complaints of 
our neighbours, when we are well, and when 
we are ill. In full health, we can scarcely 
believe that they suffer much; so faint is the 
image of pain upon our imagination: when 
softened by sickness, we readily sympathise 
with the sufferings of others. 

We concluded the day at the Turk's Head 
coffee-house very socially. He was pleased to 



292 



JUNIUS 



listen to a particular account which I gave him 
of my family, and of its hereditary estate, as to 
the extent and population of which he asked 
questions, and made calculations; recom- 
mending, at the same time, a liberal kindness 
to the tenantry, as people over whom the pro- 
prietor was placed by Providence. He took 
delight in hearing my description of the ro- 
mantic seat of my ancestors. "I must be there, 
Sir," said he, "and we will live in the old castle; 
and if there is not a room in it remaining, we 
will build one." I was highly flattered, but 
could scarcely indulge a hope that Auchinleck 
would indeed be honoured by his presence, 
and celebrated by a description, as it afterwards 
was, in his "Journey to the Western Islands." 

After we had again talked of my setting out 
for Holland, he said, "I must see thee out of 
England; I will accompany you to Harwich." 
I could not find words to express what I felt 
upon this unexpected and very great mark of 
his affectionate regard. 

Next day, Sunday, July 3, I told him I had 
been that morning at a meeting of the people 
called Quakers, where I had heard a woman 
preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preach- 
ing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It 
is not done well; but you are surprised to find 
it done at all." 

On Tuesday, August 2, (the day of my de- 
parture from London having been fixed for 
the 5th,) Dr. Johnson did me the honour to 
pass a part of the morning with me at my 
chambers. He said, "that he always felt an 
inclination to do nothing." I observed, that 
it was strange to think that the most indolent 
man in Britain had written the most laborious 
work, "The English Dictionary." 

I mentioned an imprudent publication by 
a certain friend of his, at an early period of 
life, and asked him if he thought it would hurt 
him. Johnson: "No, Sir; not much. It may 
perhaps be mentioned at an election." 

I had now made good my title to be a privi- 
leged man, and was carried bv him in the eve- 
ning to drink tea with Miss Williams, whom, 
though under the misfortune of having lost her 
sight, I found to be agreeable in conversation, 
for she had a variety of literature, and expressed 
herself well; but her peculiar value was the 
intimacy in which she had long lived with John- 
son, by which she was well acquainted with his 
habits, and knew how to lead him on to talk. 

After tea he carried me to what he called his 
walk, which was a long narrow paved court 
in the neighbourhood, overshadowed by some 



trees. There we sauntered a considerable 
time, and I complained to him that my love 
of London and of his company was such, that 
I shrunk almost from the thought of going 
away even to travel, which is generally so much 
desired by young men. He roused me by 
manly and spirited conversation. He advised 
me, when settled in any place abroad, to study 
with an eagerness after knowledge, and to 
apply to Greek an hour every day; and when 
I was moving about, to read diligently the great 
book of mankind. 

On Wednesday, August 3, we had our last 
social evening at tire Turk's Head coffee-house, 
before my setting out for foreign parts. I had 
the misfortune, before we parted to irritate 
him unintentionally. I mentioned to him how 
common it was in the world to tell absurd 
stories of him, and to ascribe to him very strange 
sayings. Johnson: "What do they make me 
say, Sir?" Boswell: "Why, Sir, as an in- 
stance very strange indeed," laughing heartily 
as I spoke, "David Hume told me, you said that 
you would stand before a battery of cannon to 
restore the Convocation to its full powers." 
Little did I apprehend that he had actually 
said this: but I was soon convinced of my 
error; for, with a determined look he thundered 
out, "And would I not, Sir? Shall the Pres- 
byterian Kirk of Scotland have its General 
Assembly, and the Church of England be 
denied its Convocation?" He was walking 
up and down the room while I told him the 
anecdote; but, when he uttered this explosion 
of high-church zeal he had come close to my 
chair, and his eyes flashed with indignation. 
I bowed to the storm, and diverted the force of 
it, by leading him to expatiate on the influence 
which religion derived from maintaining the 
church with great external respectability. 

I must not omit to mention that he this year 
wrote "The Life of Ascham," and the Dedica- 
tion to the Earl of Shaftesbury, prefixed to the 
edition of that writer's English works, pub- 
lished by Mr. Bennet. 

JUNIUS [ ? SIR PHILIP FRANCIS 

(1740-1818)] 

LETTER XII 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON 

May 30, 1769. 
My Lord, 

If the measures in which you have been most 
successful had been supported by any tolerable 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON 



2 93 



appearance of argument, I should have thought 
my time not ill employed in continuing to ex- 
amine your conduct as a minister, and stating 
it fairly to the public. But when I see ques- 
tions, of the highest national importance, carried 
as they have been, and the first principles of 
the constitution openly violated without argu- 
ment or decency, I confess I give up the cause 
in despair. The meanest of your predecessors 
had abilities sufficient to give a colour to their 
measures. If they invaded the rights of the 
people, they did not dare to offer a direct 
insult to their understanding; and, in former 
times, the most venal parliaments made it a 
condition, in their bargain with the minister, 
that he should furnish them with some plausible 
pretences for selling their country and them- 
selves. You have had the merit of introducing 
a more compendious system of government 
and logic. You neither address yourself to 
the passions nor to the understanding, but 
simply to the touch. You apply yourself im- 
mediately to the feelings of your friends who, 
contrary to the forms of parliament, never enter 
heartily into a debate until they have divided. 
Relinquishing, therefore, all idle views of 
amendment to your Grace, or of benefit to the 
public, let me be permitted to consider your 
character and conduct merely as a subject of 
curious speculation. There is something in 
both, which distinguishes you not only from all 
other ministers, but all other men. It is not 
that you do wrong by design, but that you 
should never do right by mistake. It is not 
that your indolence and your activity have been 
equally misapplied, but that the first uniform 
principle, or, if I may so call it, the genius of 
your life, should have carried you through every 
possible change and contradiction of conduct 
without the momentary imputation or colour 
of a virtue, and that the wildest spirit of incon- 
sistency should never once have betrayed you 
into a wise or honourable action. This, I own, 
gives an air of singularity to your fortune, as 
well as to your disposition. Let us look back 
together to a scene in which a mind like yours 
will find nothing to repent of. Let us try, my 
Lord, how well you have supported the various 
relations in which you stood, to your sovereign, 
your country, your friends, and yourself. Give 
us, if it be possible, some excuse to posterity, 
and to ourselves, for submitting to your admin- 
istration. If not the abilities of a great minister, 
if not the integrity of a patriot, or the fidelity 
of a friend, show us, at least, the firmness of a 
man. For the sake of your mistress, the lover 



shall be spared. I will not lead her into public 
as you have done, nor will I insult the memory 
of departed beauty. Her sex, which alone 
made her amiable in your eyes, makes her 
respectable in mine. 

The character of the reputed ancestors of 
some men has made it possible for their de- 
scendants to be vicious in the extreme without 
being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for 
instance, left no distressing examples of virtue 
even to their legitimate posterity, and you may 
look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedi- 
gree in which heraldry has not left a single good 
quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. 
You have better proofs of your descent, my 
Lord, than the register of a marriage, or any 
troublesome inheritance of reputation. There 
are some hereditary strokes of character by 
which a family may be as clearly distinguished 
as by the blackest features of the human face. 
Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. 
Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another 
sort, and should have died upon the same 
scaffold. At the distance of a century we see 
their different characters happily revived and 
blended in your Grace. Sullen and severe 
without religion, profligate without gaiety, 
you live like Charles II. without being an 
amiable companion, and, for aught I know, 
may die as his father did without the reputation 
of a martyr. 

You had already taken your degrees with 
credit in those schools in which the English 
nobility are formed to virtue when you were 
introduced to Lord Chatham's protection. 
From Newmarket, White's, and the Opposition, 
he gave you to the world with an air of popu- 
larity which young men usually set out with 
and seldom preserve — grave and plausible 
enough to be thought fit for business, too young 
for treachery, and, in short, a patriot of no 
unpromising expectations. Lord Chatham was 
the earliest object of your political wonder and 
attachment. Yet you deserted him upon the 
first hopes that offered of an equal share of 
power with Lord Rockingham. When the 
Duke of Cumberland's first negotiation failed, 
and when the favourite was pushed to the last 
extremity, you saved him, by joining with 
an administration in which Lord Chatham 
had refused to engage. Still, however, he was 
your friend, and you are yet to explain to the 
world, why you consented to act without him, 
or why, after uniting with Lord Rockingham, 
you deserted and betrayed him. You com- 
plained that no measures were taken to satisfy 



294 



JUNIUS 



your patron, and that your friend, Mr. Wilkes, 
who had suffered so much for the party, had 
been abandoned to his fate. They have since 
contributed not a little to your present pleni- 
tude of power; yet I think Lord Chatham 
has less reason than ever to be satisfied; and 
as for Mr. Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the greatest 
misfortune of his life, that you should have so 
many compensations to make in the closet for 
your former friendship with him. Your gra- 
cious master understands your character, and 
makes you a persecutor, because you have been 
a friend. 

Lord Chatham formed his last administra- 
tion upon principles which you certainly con- 
curred in, or you could never have been placed 
at the head of the treasury. By deserting those 
principles, and by acting in direct contradiction 
to them, in which he found you were secretly 
supported in the closet, you soon forced him 
to leave you to yourself, and to withdraw his 
name from an administration which had been 
formed on the credit of it. You had then a 
prospect of friendships better suited to your 
genius and more likely to fix your disposition. 
Marriage is the point on which every rake is 
stationary at last ; and truly, my Lord, you may 
well be weary of the circuit you have taken, 
for you have now fairly travelled through every 
sign in the political zodiac, from the Scorpion, 
in which you stung Lord Chatham, to the hopes 
of a Virgin in the house of Bloomsbury. One 
would think that you had had sufficient ex- 
perience of the frailty of nuptial engagements, 
or, at least, that such a friendship as the Duke 
of Bedford's might have been secured to you 
by the auspicious marriage of your late Duchess 
with his nephew. But ties of this tender nature 
cannot be drawn too close; and it may, pos- 
sibly, be a part of the Duke of Bedford's am- 
bition, after making her an honest woman, to 
work a miracle of the same sort upon your 
Grace. This worthy nobleman has long dealt 
in virtue. There has been a large consump- 
tion of it in his own family; and, in the way 
of traffic, I dare say he has bought and sold 
more than half the representative integrity 
of the nation. 

In a political view this union is not imprudent. 
The favour of princes is a perishable com- 
modity. You have now a strength sufficient 
to command the closet ; and, if it be necessary 
to betray one friendship more, you may set 
even Lord Bute at defiance. Mr. Stuart 
Mackenzie may possibly remember what use 
the Duke of Bedford usually makes of his 



power ; and our gracious sovereign, I doubt not, 
rejoices at this first appearance of union among 
his servants. His late majesty, under the happy 
influence of a family connection between his 
ministers, was relieved from the cares of gov- 
ernment. A more active prince may perhaps 
observe with suspicion by what degrees an artful 
servant grows upon his master, from the first 
unlimited professions of duty and attachment 
to the painful representation of the necessity 
of the royal service, and soon, in regular pro- 
gression, to the humble insolence of dictating 
in all the obsequious forms of peremptory sub- 
mission. The interval is carefully employed 
in forming connections, creating interests, col- 
lecting a party, and laying the foundation 
of double marriages; until the deluded prince 
who thought he had found a creature prosti- 
tuted to his service, and insignificant enough to 
be always dependent upon his pleasure, finds 
him at last too strong to be commanded and 
too formidable to be removed. 

Your Grace's public conduct as a minister 
is but the counterpart of your private history; 
— the same inconsistency, the same contra- 
dictions. In America we trace you from the 
first opposition to the Stamp Act on principles 
of convenience, to Mr. Pitt's surrender of the 
right; then forward to Lord Rockingham's 
surrender of the fact; then back again to Lord 
Rockingham's declaration of the right; then 
forward to taxation with Mr. Townshend; and, 
in the last instance, from the gentle Conway's 
undetermined discretion to blood - and com- 
pulsion with the Duke of Bedford. Yet, if 
we may believe the simplicity of Lord North's 
eloquence, at the opening of next session you 
are once more to be the patron of America. 
Is this the wisdom of a great minister? or is 
it the ominous vibration of a pendulum? Had 
you no opinion of your own, my Lord? or was 
it the gratification of betraying every party 
with which you have been united, and of 
deserting every political principle in which 
you had concurred? 

Your enemies may turn their eyes without 
regret from this admirable system of provincial 
government. They will find gratification 
enough in the survey of your domestic 
foreign policy. 

If, instead of disowning Lord Shelburne, 
the British court had interposed with dignity 
and firmness, you know, my Lord, that Corsica 
would never have been invaded. The French 
saw the weakness of a distracted ministry, and 
were justified in treating you with contempt. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORAFTON 



295 



They would probably have yielded in the first. 
instance, rather than hazard a rupture with this 
country; hut, being once engaged, they can- 
not retreat without dishonour. Common sense 
foresee 1 consequences which have escaped your 
Grace's penetration. Either we suffer the 
Fren< b to make an a< qui ition, the importance 
of which you have probably no conception of, 
or we oppose them hy an underhand manage- 
ment, which only disgraces us in the eyes of 
Europe, without answering any purpose of 
policy or prudence. From secret, indirect 
assistance, a transition to some more open 
decisive measures becomes unavoidable; till 
at last we find ourselves principals in the war, 
and are obliged to hazard everything for an 
object which might have originally been ob- 
tained without expense <>r danger. J am riot. 

v< I led in the politics Of the north; but this, 
I believe, is "Ttain, that half the money you 
have distributed to carry the expulsion of Mr. 

Wilkes, or even your secretary's share in the 
ubscription, would have kept the Turks 
at your devotion. Was it economy, my Lord? 
or did the coy resistance you have constantly 
met with in the British senate, make you de- 
spair of corrupting the Divan? Your friends, 
indeed, have the first claim upon your bounty, 
but if five hundred pounds a year can be spared 
in pension to Sir John Moore, it. would not have 
disgraced you to have allowed something to 
the secret service of the public. 

You will say perhaps that the situation of 
affairs at home demanded and engrossed the 
whole of your attention. Ifere, I confess, you 
have been active. An amiable, accomplished 
prince ascends the throne under the happii 1 
of all auspices — the acclamations and united 
affections of bis subjects. The first measures 
of his reign, and even the odium of a favourite, 
were not able to shake their attachment. Your 
services, my Lord, have been more successful. 
Since you were permitted to take the lead we 
have seen the natural effects of a system of 
government at once both odious and contempt- 
ible. We have seen the laws sometimes scan- 
dalously relaxed, sometimes violently stretched 
beyond their tone. We have seen the sacred 
person of the sovereign insulted; and, in pro- 
found peace, and with an undisputed title, the 
fidelity of his subjects brought by his own 
servants into public question. Without abili- 
ties, resolution, or interest, you have done more 
than Lord Bute could accomplish with all 
Scotland at his heels. 

Your Grace, little anxious perhaps either for 



present <>r future reputation, will not desire to 

be banded down in these- colours tO posterity. 
You have reason to flatter yourself that the 
memory of your administration will survive 
even the forms of a constitution which our 
ancestors vainly hoped would be immortal; 

and as for your personal character f will not, 
for the honour of human nature, suppose that 
you can wish to have it remembered 'I he 
condition of the present times i, desperate 
indeed; but there is a debt due to those who 
come after US, and it is the historian's office 
to punish though be cannot correct. J do not 

give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, 

But as an example to deter; and, as your con- 
duct comprehends everything that a wise or boo - 
est minister should avoid, I mean to make you a 

negative instruction to your successor , forever. 

Junius. 

LETTER XV 

■\<> HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON 

July 8, 1769. 
My Lord, 

if nature had given you an understanding 
qualified to keep pace with the wishes and 
principles of your heart, she would have made 
you, perhaps, the most formidable minister 
that ever was employed under a limited mon- 
arch to accomplish the ruin of a free people. 
When neither the feelings of shame, the re- 
proaches of conscience, nor the dread of punish- 
ment, form any bar to the designs of a minister, 
the people would have too much reason to 

lament their condition, if they did not find 
some resource in the weakness of his under* 
standing. We owe it to the bounty of Provi- 
dence, that the completes! depravity of the heart 
is sometimes strangely united with a confusion 
of the mind which counteracts the most fa- 
vourite principles, and makes the same man 
treacherous without art, and a hypocrite with- 
out deceiving 'I he measures, for instance, in 
which your Grace's activity has been chiefly 
exerted, as they were adopted without skill, 
should have been conducted with more than 
common dexterity. But truly, my Lord, the 
execution has been as gross as the design. By 
one decisive step you have defeated all the arts 
of writing. You have fairly confounded the 
intrigues of opposition, and silenced the 
clamours of faction. A dark, ambiguous sys- 
tem might require and furnish the materials 
of ingenious illustration; and, in doubtful 



>q6 



JUNIUS 



measures, the virulent exaggeration of party 

must be employed to rouse ami engage the 
passions of the people. You have now brought 
the merits oi your administration to an issue 
on which every Englishman of the narrowest 
capacity may determine for himself. It is not 
an alarm to the passions, but a ealm appeal to 
the judgment of the people upon their own most 
essential interests. A more experienced min- 
ister would not have hazarded a direct invasion 
of the first principles of the Constitution before 
he had made some progress in subduing the 
spirit of the people. With such a eause as 
yours, my Lord, it is not sufficient that you have 
the court at your devotion unless you can find 
means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The 
collective body of the people form that jury, 
and from their decision there is but one appeal. 

Whether you have talents to support you at 
a crisis of sued difficulty and danger should long 
since have been 'considered. Judging truly of 
your disposition, you have, perhaps, mistaken 
the extent of your capacity. Good faith and 
folly have so long been received for synony- 
mous terms, that the reverse of the proposition 
has grown into credit, and every villain fancies 
himself a man of abilities. It is the appre- 
hension of your friends, my Lord, that you have 
drawn some hastv conclusion of this sort, and 
that a partial reliance upon your moral char- 
acter has betrayed you beyond the depth of 
your understanding. You have now carried 
things too far to retreat. You have plainly 
declared to the people what they are to expect 
from the continuance of your administration. 
It is time for your Grace to consider what you 
also may expect in return from their spirit and 
their resentment. 

Since the accession of our most graeious 
sovereign to the throne we have seen a system 
of government which may well be called a reign 
of experiments. Parties of all denominations 
have been employed and dismissed. The ad- 
vice of the ablest men in this country has 
been repeatedly called for and rejected; and 
when the royal displeasure has been signified 
to a minister, the marks of it have usually been 
proportioned to his abilities and integrity. The 
spirit of the favourite had some apparent in- 
fluence upon every administration: and every 
set of ministers preserved an appearance of 
duration, as long as they submitted to that 
influence. Hut there were certain services to 

be performed for the favourite's security, or to 
gratify his resentments, which your predecessors 
in office had the wisdom or the virtue not to 



undertake. The moment this refractory spirit 
was discovered their disgrace was determined. 
Lord Chatham, Mr. Grenville, and Lord 
Rockingham have successively had the hon- 
our to be dismissed for preferring their duty 
as servants of the public to those compliances 
which were expected from their station. A 
submissive administration was at last gradu- 
allv collected from the deserters of all parties, 
interests, and connections; ami nothing re- 
mained but to find a leader for these gallant 
well disciplined troops. Stand forth, my Lord, 
for thou art the man. Lord Bute found no 
resource of dependence or security in the proud, 
imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's 
abilities, the shrewd, indexible judgment of 
Mr. Grenville, nor in the mild but determined 
integrity of Lord Rockingham. His views 
and situation required a creature void of all 
these properties; and he was forced to go 
through every division, resolution, composition, 
ami refinement of political chemistry, before 
he happily arrived at the caput ntortitum of 
vitriol in your Grace. Flat and insipid in your 
retired state, but, brought into action, you 
become vitriol again. Such are the extremes 
of alternate indolence or fury which have gov- 
erned your whole administration. Your cir- 
cumstances with regard to the people soon 
becoming desperate, like other honest servants 
you determined to involve the best of masters 
in the same difficulties with yourself. We owe 
it to your Grace's well-directed labours, that 
your sovereign has been persuaded to doubt of 
the affections of his subjects, and the people 
to suspect the virtues of their sovereign, at 
a time when both were unquestionable. You 
have degraded the royal dignity into a base, 
dishonourable competition with Mr. Wilkes, 
nor had you abilities to carry even this last con- 
temptible triumph over a private man, without 
the grossest violation of the fundamental laws 
of the constitution and rights of the people. 
but these are rights, my Lord, which you can no 
more annihilate than you can the soil to which 
they are annexed. The question no longer 
turns upon points of national honour and se- 
Curity abroad, or on the degrees of expedience 
and propriety of measures at home. It was 
not inconsistent that you should abandon the 
cause of liberty in another country, which you 
hail persecuted in your own; and in the com- 
mon arts of domestic corruption, we miss no 
part of Sir Robert Walpole's system except his 
abilities. In this humble imitative line you 
might long have proceeded, safe and contempt- 



TO HIS CRACK THE DUKE OF CRAITON 



297 



[ble. You might, probably, never Have risen to 
the dignity of being hated, and even have been 
despised with moderation. Hut it stems you 
meant to be distinguished, and, to a mind like 
yours, there was no other road to fame but l>y 
the destruction of a noble fabric, which you 
thought had been loo long the admiration of 
mankind. The use you have made of the 
military force introduced an alarming change 
in the mode of executing the laws. The arbi- 
trary appointmenl of Mr. Luttrell invades the 
foundation of the laws themselves, as it mani- 
fest ly transfers the right of legislation from 
those whom the people have chosen to those 
whom they have rejected. With a succession 
of such appointments we may soon see a I louse 
of Commons collected, in the choice of which 
the other towns and counlies of England will 
have as little share as the devoted county of 
Middlesex. 

Yet, I trust, your Grace will find thai the 
people of this country are neither to be inlimi 
daled by violent measures, nor deceived by 
refinements. When they see Mr. Luttrell 
seated in the House of Commons by mere dint 
of power, and in direct opposition to the choice 
of a whole county, they will not listen to those 
subtleties by which every arbitrary exertion of 
authority is explained into the law and privi- 
lege of parliament. It requires no persuasion 
of argument, but simply the evidence of the 
senses, to convince them that to transfer the 
right of election from the collective to the rep 
resentative body of the people contradicts all 
those ideas of a House of Commons which 
they have received from their forefathers, and 
which they have already, though vainly per- 
haps, delivered to their children. The prin- 
ciples on which this violent measure has been 
defended, have added scorn to injury, and 
forced us to feel that we arc not only oppressed 
but insulted. 

With what force, my Lord, with what pro- 
ted ion, are you prepared to meet the united 
detestation of the people of Kngland? The 
city of London has given a generous example 
to the kingdom in what manner a king of this 
country ought to be addressed; and 1 fancy, 
my Lord, it is not yet in your courage to stand 
between your sovereign and the addresses of 
his subjects. The injuries you have done this 
country are such as demand not only redress 
but vengeance. In vain shall you look for 
protection to that venal vote which you have 



already paid for — another must be purchased; 

and to save a minister, the House of Commons 

must declare themselves not only independent 

of their constituents, but the determined ene 

mies of the constitution. Consider, my Lord, 
whether this be an extremity to which their 
fears will permit Ihem lo advance, or, if their 
protection should fail you, how far you are 
authorised to rely upon the sincerity of those 
smiles which a pious court lavishes withoul 
reluctance upon a libertine by profession. It is 
not, indeed, the least of Hie thousand contra- 
dictions which attend you, that a man, marked 
lo the world by the grossest violation of all 
ceremony and decorum, should be the first ser- 
vant of a court in which prayers are morality 
and kneeling is religion. Trust not too far 
to a 1 )] tea ranees by which your predecessors 
have been deceived, though they have not 
been injured. Even the best of princes may at 
last discover that this is a contention in which 
everything may be lost but nothing can be 
gained; and, as you became minister by ac- 
cident, were adopted without choice, trusted 
without confidence, and continued without 
favour, be assured thai, whenever an occasion 
presses, you will be discarded without even the 
forms of regret. You will then have reason to 
be thankful if you are permitted to retire lo 
thai seat of learning which, in contemplation 
of the system of your life, the comparative 
purity of your manners with those of their high 
steward, and a thousand other recommending 
circumstances, has chosen you to encourage 
the growing virtue of their youth, and lo pre 
side over their education. Whenever the spirit 
of distributing prebends and bishopricks shall 
have departed from you, you will find that 
learned seminary perfectly recovered from the 
delirium of an installation, and, whal in truth 
it ought to be, once more a peaceful scene 
of slumber and thoughtless meditation. The 
venerable lulors of the university will no longer 

distress your modesty by proposing you for a 
pattern to their pupils. The learned dulness 
of declamation will be silent; and even the 
venal muse, though happiest in fiction, will 
forget your virtues. Yet, for the benefit of 
the succeeding age, I could wish that your 
retreat might be deferred until your morals 
shall happily be ripened to that maturity of 
corruption at which the worst examples cease 
to be contagious. 

Junius. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
(1770-1850) 

PREFACE TO THE "LYRICAL BALLADS" 

It is supposed, that by the act of writing in 
verse an Author makes a formal engagement 
that he will gratify certain known habits of 
association; that he not only thus apprises 
the Reader that certain classes of ideas and 
expressions will be found in his book, but that 
others will be carefully excluded. This ex- 
ponent or symbol held forth by metrical lan- 
guage must in different eras of literature have 
excited very different expectations: for example, 
in the age of Catullus, Terence, and Lucretius, 
and that of Statius or Claudian; and in our 
own country, in the age of Shakspeare and 
Beaumont and Fletcher, and that of Donne 
and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope. I will not 
take upon me to determine the exact import 
of the promise which by the act of writing 
in verse an Author, in the present day, makes 
to his Reader; but I am certain it will appear 
to many persons that I have not fulfilled the 
terms of an engagement thus voluntarily con- 
tracted. They who have been accustomed to 
the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many 
modern writers, if they persist in reading this 
book to its conclusion, will, no doubt, frequently 
have to struggle with feelings of strangeness 
and awkwardness: they will look round for 
poetry, and will be induced to inquire by what 
species of courtesy these attempts can be per- 
mitted to assume that title. I hope therefore 
the Reader will not censure me, if I attempt 
to state what I have proposed to myself to per- 
form; and also (as far as the limits of this 
notice will permit) to explain some of the chief 
reasons which have determined me in the choice 
of my purpose: that at least he may be spa ret! 
any unpleasant feeling of disappointment, and 
that I myself may be protected from the most 
dishonourable accusation which can be brought 
against an Author, namely, that of an indolence 
which prevents him from endeavouring to as- 
certain what is his duty, or, when his duty is 
ascertained, prevents him from performing it. 



The principal object, then, which I proposed 
to myself in these Poems was to choose incidents 
and situations from common life, and to relate 
or describe them, throughout, as far as was 
possible, in a selection of language really used 
by men, and, at the same time, to throw over 
them a certain colouring of imagination, where- 
by ordinary things should be presented to the 
mind in an unusual way; and, further, and 
above all, to make these incidents and situa- 
tions interesting by tracing in them, truly 
though not ostentatiously, the primary laws 
of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the 
manner in which we associate ideas in a state 
of excitement. Low and rustic life was gen- 
erally chosen, because, in that condition, the 
essential passions of the heart find a better 
soil in which they can attain their maturity, 
are less under restraint, and speak a plainer 
and more emphatic language; because in that 
condition of life our elementary feelings co- 
exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, con- 
sequently, may be more accurately contem- 
plated, and more forcibly communicated; 
because the manners of rural life germinate 
from those elementary feelings; and from the 
necessary character of rural occupations, are 
more easily comprehended, and are more 
durable; and, lastly, because in that condition 
the passions of men are incorporated with 
the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. 
The language, too, of these men is adopted 
(purified indeed from what appears to be its 
real defects, from all lasting and rational causes 
of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly 
communicate with the best objects from which 
the best part of language is originally derived; 
and because, from their rank in society and the 
sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, 
being less under the influence of social vanity, 
they convey their feelings and notions in sim- 
ple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, 
such a language, arising out of repeated expe- 
rience and regular feelings, is a more perma- 
nent, and a far more philosophical language, 
than that which is frequently substituted for 
it by Poets, who think that they are conferring 
honour upon themselves and their art, in pro- 



: 9 8 



PREFACE TO THE "LYRICAL BALLADS" 



299 



portion as they separate themselves from the 
sympathies of men, and indujge in arbitrary 
and capricious habits of expression, in order 
to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle 
appetites, of their own creation. 

I cannot, however, be insensible of the pres- 
ent outcry against the triviality and meanness, 
both of thought and language, which some of 
my contemporaries have occasionally intro- 
duced into their metrical compositions; and I 
acknowledge that this defect, where it exists, 
is more dishonourable to the Writer's own char- 
acter than false refinement or arbitrary inno- 
vation, though I should contend at the same 
time, that it is far less pernicious in the sum 
of its consequences. From such verses the 
Poems in these volumes will be found dis- 
tinguished at least by one mark of difference, 
that each of them has a worthy purpose. Not 
that I mean to say, I always began to write 
with a distinct purpose formally conceived; 
but my habits of meditation have so formed my 
feelings, as that my descriptions of such objects 
as strongly excite those feelings, will be found 
to carry along with them a purpose. If in this 
opinion I am mistaken, I can have little right 
to the name of a Poet. For all good poetry is 
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: 
and though this be true, Poems to which any 
value can be attached were never produced on 
any variety of subjects but by a man, who, 
being possessed of more than usual organic 
sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. 
For our continued influxes of feeling are modi- 
fied and directed by our thoughts, which are 
indeed the representatives of all our past 
feelings: and, as by contemplating the relation 
of these general representatives to each other, 
we discover what is really important to men, 
so, by the repetition and continuance of this 
act, our feelings will be connected with impor- 
tant subjects, till at length, if we be originally 
possessed of much sensibility, such habits of 
mind will be produced, that, by observing 
blindly and mechanically the impulses of those 
habits, we shall describe objects, and utter 
sentiments, of such a nature, and in such 
connection with each other, that the under- 
standing of the being to whom we address 
ourselves, if he be in a healthful state of asso- 
ciation, must necessarily be in some degree 
enlightened, and his affections ameliorated. 

I have said that each of these poems has 
a purpose. I have also informed my Reader 
what this purpose will be found principally 
to be: namely, to illustrate the manner in 



which our feelings and ideas are associated in a 
state of excitement. But, speaking in language 
somewhat more appropriate, it is to follow the 
fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated 
by the great and simple affections of our nature. 
This object I have endeavoured in these short 
essays to attain by various means; by tracing 
the maternal passion through many of its more 
subtile windings, as in the poems of the Idiot 
Boy and the Mad Mother ; by accompanying 
the last struggles of a human being, at the ap- 
proach of death, cleaving in solitude to life and 
society, as in the Poem of the Forsaken Indian; 
by showing, as in the Stanzas entitled We are 
Seven, the perplexity and obscurity which in 
childhood attend our notion of death, or rather 
our utter inability to admit that notion; or by 
displaying the strength of fraternal, or, to speak 
more philosophically, of moral attachment when 
early associated with the great and beautiful ob- 
jects of nature, as in The Brothers; or, as in the 
Incident of Simon Lee, by placing my Reader 
in the way of receiving from ordinary moral 
sensations another and more salutary impres- 
sion than we are accustomed to receive from 
them. It has also been part of my general 
purpose to attempt to sketch characters under 
the influence of less impassioned feelings, as in 
The Two April Mornings, The Fountain, The 
Old Man Travelling, The Two Thieves, etc., 
characters of which the elements are simple, 
belonging rather to nature than to manners, 
such as exist now, and will probably always 
exist, and which from their constitution may 
be distinctly and profitably contemplated. I 
will not abuse the indulgence of my Reader 
by dwelling longer upon this subject; but it is 
proper that I should mention one other cir- 
cumstance which distinguishes these Poems 
from the popular Poetry of the day; it is this, 
that the feeling therein developed gives impor- 
tance to the action and situation, and not the 
action and situation to the feeling. My mean- 
ing will be rendered perfectly intelligible by 
referring my Reader to the Poems entitled Poor 
Susan and the Childless Father, particularly to 
the last Stanza of the latter Poem. 

I will not suffer a sense of false modesty to 
prevent me from asserting, that I point my 
Reader's attention to this mark of distinction, 
far less for the sake of these particular Poems 
than from the general importance of the subject. 
The subject is indeed important ! For the hu- 
man mind is capable of being excited without 
the application of gross and violent stimulants; 
and he must have a very faint perception of its 



;oo 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



beauty and dignity who docs not know this, and 
who (foes not further know, that one being is ele- 
vated above another, in proportion as he pos- 
sesses this capability. It has therefore appeared 
to me, that to endeavour to produce or enlarge 
this capability is one of the best services in 
which, at any period, a Writer can be engaged; 
but this service, excellent at all times, is espe- 
cially so at the present day. For a multitude 
of causes, unknown to former times, are now 
acting with a combined force to blunt the dis- 
criminating powers of the mind, and unfitting 
it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a 
state of almost savage torpor. The most ef- 
fective of these causes are the great national 
events which arc daily taking place, and the 
increasing accumulation of men in cities, where 
the uniformity of their occupations produces a 
craving for extraordinary incident, which the 
rapid communication of intelligence hourly 
gratifies. To this tendency of life and man- 
ners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of 
the country have conformed themselves. The 
invaluable works of our elder writers, I had 
almost said the works of Shakspeare and 
Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, 
sickly ami stupid German Tragedies, and del- 
uges of idle ami extravagant stories in verse. — 
When 1 think upon this degrading thirst after 
outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed 
to have spoken of the feeble effort with which 
1 have endeavoured to counteract it; and, re- 
Qecting upon the magnitude of the general 
evil, 1 should be oppressed with no dishonour- 
able melancholy, had I not a deep impression 
of certain inherent and indestructible qualities 
of the human mind, and likewise of certain 
powers in the great and permanent objects 
that act upon it, which are equally inherent 
and indestructible; and did 1 not further add 
to this impression a belief, that the time is ap- 
proaching when the evil will be systematically 
opposed, by men of greater powers, ami with 
far more distinguished success. 

Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and 
aim of these Poems, I shall request the Reader's 
permission to apprise him of a few circum- 
stances relating to their style, in order, among 
other reasons, that I may not be censured for 
not having performed what 1 never attempted. 
The Reader will find that personifications of 
abstract ideas rarely occur in these volumes; 
and, 1 hope, are utterly rejected, as an ordinary 
device to elevate the style, and raise it above 
prose. 1 have proposed to myself to imitate, 
and, as far as is possible, to adopt the very 



language of men ; and assuredly such personi- 
fications do not. make any natural or regular 
pari oi that language. They are, indeed, a 
figure of speech occasionally prompted by pas- 
sion, and I have made use of them as such; 
but I have endeavoured utterly to reject them 
as a mechanical device of style, or as a family 
language which Writers in metre seem to lay 
claim to by prescription. I have wished to 
keep my Reader in the company of flesh and 
blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall in- 
terest him. I am, however, well aware that 
others who pursue a different track may inter- 
est him likewise; I do not interfere with their 
claim, I only wish to prefer a different claim 
of my own. There will also be found in these 
pieces little of what is usually called poetic 
diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid 
it as others ordinarily take to produce it; this 
1 have done for the reason already alleged, to 
bring my language near to the language of men, 
and further, because the pleasure which I have 
proposed to myself to impart, is of a kind very 
different from that which is supposed by many 
persons to be the proper object of poetry. I do 
not know how, without being culpably particu- 
lar, I can give my Reader a more exact notion 
of the style in which 1 wished these poems to be 
written, than, by informing him that 1 have at 
all times endeavoured to look steadily at my 
subject, consequently, 1 hope that there is in 
these Poems little falsehood of description, 
and that my ideas are expressed in language 
fitted to their respective importance. Some- 
thing 1 must have gained by this practice, as 
it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, 
namely, good sense; but it has necessarily 
cut me off from a large portion of phrases and 
figures of speech which from father to son have 
long been regarded as the common inheritance 
of Poets. I have also thought it expedient to 
restrict myself still further, having abstained 
from the use of many expressions, in themselves 
proper and beautiful, but which have been 
foolishly repeated by bad Poets, till such feel- 
ings of disgust are connected with them as it is 
scarcely possible by any art of association to 
overpower. 

If in a poem there should be found a series 
of lines, or even a single line, in which the 
language, though naturally arranged, and ac- 
cording to the strict laws of metre, does not 
differ from that of prose, there is a numerous 
class of critics who, when they stumble upon 
these prosaisms, as they call them, imagine 
that they have made a notable discovery, and 



PREFACE TO THE "LYRICAL BALLADS" 



301 



exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant of his 
own profession. Now these men would estab- 
lish a canon of criticism which the Reader 
will conclude he must utterly reject, if he wishes 
to be pleased with these pieces. And it would 
be a most easy task to prove to him, that not 
only the language of a large portion of every 
good poem, even of the most elevated character, 
must necessarily, except with reference to the 
metre, in no respect differ from that of good 
prose, but likewise that some of the most inter- 
esting parts of the best poems will be found to 
be strictly the language of prose, when prose 
is well written. The truth of this assertion 
might be demonstrated by innumerable pas- 
sages from almost all the poetical writings, 
even of Milton himself. I have not space 
for much quotation; but, to illustrate the sub- 
ject in a general manner, I will here adduce a 
short composition of Gray, who was at the head 
of those who, by their reasonings, have at- 
tempted to widen the space of separation be- 
twixt Prose and Metrical composition, and 
was more than any other man curiously elab- 
orate in the structure of his own poetic diction. 

In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, 
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire: 
The birds in vain their amorous descant join, 
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire. 
These ears, alas ! for other notes repine; 
A different object do these eyes require ; 
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; 
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire: 
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, 
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; 
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; 
To warm their little loves the birds complain. 
J fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, 
And weep the more because I weep in vain. 

It will easily be perceived, that the only part 
of this Sonnet which is of any value is the lines 
printed in Italics; it is equally obvious, that, 
except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single 
word "fruitless" for fruitlessly, which is so far 
a defect, the language of these lines does in no 
respect differ from that of prose. 

By the foregoing quotation I have shown that 
the language of Prose may yet be well adapted 
to Poetry; and I have previously asserted, 
that a large portion of the language of every 
good poem can in no respect differ from that 
of good Prose. I will go further. I do not 
doubt that it may be safely affirmed, that there 
neither is, nor can be, any essential difference 
between the language of prose and metrical 
composition. We are fond of tracing the re- 



semblance between Poetry and Painting, and, 
accordingly, we call them Sisters: but where 
shall we find bonds of connection sufficiently 
strict to typify the affinity betwixt metrical and 
prose composition ? They both speak by 
and to the same organs; the bodies in which 
both of them are clothed may be said to be of 
the same substance, their affections are kindred, 
and almost identical, not necessarily differing 
even in degree; Poetry 1 sheds no tears "such 
as Angels weep" but natural and human tears; 
she can boast of no celestial Ichor that dis- 
tinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; 
the same human blood circulates through the 
veins of them both. 

If it be affirmed that rhyme and metrical 
arrangement of themselves constitute a distinc- 
tion which overturns what I have been saying 
on the strict affinity of metrical language with 
that of prose, and paves the way for other 
artificial distinctions which the mind volun- 
tarily admits, I answer that the language of 
such Poetry as I am recommending is, as far 
as is possible, a selection of the language really 
spoken by men ; that this selection, wherever 
it is made with true taste and feeling, will of 
itself form a distinction far greater than would 
at first be imagined, and will entirely separate 
the composition from the vulgarity and mean- 
ness of ordinary life; and, if metre be super- 
added thereto, I believe that a dissimilitude 
will be produced altogether sufficient for the 
gratification of a rational mind. What other 
distinction would we have? Whence is it to 
come? And where is it to exist ? Not, surely, 
where the Poet speaks through the mouths of 
his characters: it cannot be necessary here, 
either for elevation of style, or any of its sup- 
posed ornaments: for, if the Poet's subject be 
judiciously chosen, it will naturally, and upon 
fit occasion, lead him to passions the language 
of which, if selected truly and judiciously, must 
necessarily be dignified and variegated, and 
alive with metaphors and figures. I forbear 
to speak of an incongruity which would shock 

1 I here use the word "Poetry" (though against 
my own judgment) as opposed to the word "Prose," 
and synonymous with metrical composition. But 
much confusion has been introduced into criticism 
by this contradistinction of Poetry and Prose, instead 
of the more philosophical one of Poetry and Matter 
of Fact, or Science. The only strict antithesis to 
Prose is Metre: nor is this, in truth, a strict antithesis; 
because lines and passages of metre so naturally 
occur in writing prose, that it would be scarcely 
possible to avoid them, even were it desirable. 



\02 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



the intelligent Reader, should the Poet inter- 
weave any foreign splendour of Ids own with 

that which the passion naturally suggests: 
it is sufficient to say that such addition is un- 
necessary. And, surely, it is more probable 
that those passages, which with propriety 
abound with metaphors and figures, will have 
their due effect, if, upon other occasions where 
the passions are of a milder character, the style 
also he subdued and temperate. 

Hut, as the pleasure which 1 hope to give by 
the Poems 1 now present to the Reader must 
depend entirely on just notions upon this sub- 
ject, and, as it is in itself of the highest impor- 
tance to our taste and moral feelings, 1 cannot 
content myself with these detached remarks. 
Ami if, in what 1 am about to say, it shall appear 
to some that my labour is unnecessary, and 
that 1 am like a man lighting a battle without 
enemies, I would remind such persons, that, 
whatever may be the language outwardly 
bolden by men, a practical faith in the opin- 
ions which 1 am wishing to establish is almost 
unknown. If my conclusions are admitted, 
and carried as far as they must be carried if 
admitted at all, our judgments concerning the 
works of the greatest Poets both, ancient and 
modern will be far different from what they are 
at present, both when we praise, and when we 
censure: and our moral feelings influencing and 
influenced by these judgments will, 1 believe, 
be corrected and purified. 

Taking up the subject, then, upon general 
grounds, I ask what is meant by the word 
" Poet "? What is a Poet? To whom does he 
address himself? Ami what language is to be 
expected from him? He is a man speaking to 
men: a man, it is true, endued with more 
lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tender- 
ness, who has a greater knowledge of human 
nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than 
are supposed to be common among mankind; 
a man pleased with his own passions and 
volitions, and who rejoices more than other 
men in the spirit of life that is in him; de- 
lighting to contemplate similar volitions and 
passions as manifested in the goings-on of the 
Universe, and habitually impelled to create them 
where he does not find them. To these quali- 
ties he has added, a disposition to be affected 
more than other men by absent things as if 
they were present; an ability of conjuring up 
in himself passions, which are indeed far from 
being the same as those produced by real events, 
yet (especially in those parts of the general 
sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) 



do more nearly resemble the passions produced 
by real events, than anything which, from the 
motions of their own minds merely, other men 
are accustomed to feel in themselves; whence, 
and from practice, he has acquired a greater 
readiness ami power in expressing what he 
thinks and feels, and especially those thoughts 
and feelings which, by his own choice, or 
from the structure of his own mind, arise in 
him without immediate external excitement. 

But, whatever portion of this faculty we may 
suppose even the greatest Poet to possess, there 
cannot be a doubt but that the language which 
it will suggest to him, must, in liveliness and 
truth, fall far short of that which is uttered by 
men in real life, under the actual pressure of 
those passions, certain shadows of which the 
Poet thus produces, or feels to be produced, in 
himself. 

However exalted a notion we would wish to 
cherish of the character of a Poet, it is obvious, 
that, while he describes and imitates passions, 
his situation is altogether slavish and mechan- 
ical, compared with the freedom and power 
of real and substantial action and suffering. 
So that it will be the wish of the Poet to bring 
his feelings near to those of the persons whose 
feelings he describes, nay, for short spaces of 
time, perhaps, to let himself slip into an entire 
delusion, ami even confound ami identify his 
own feelings with theirs; modifying only the 
language which is thus suggested to him by a 
consideration that he describes for a particular 
purpose, that of giving pleasure. Here, then, 
he will apply the principle on which I have so 
much insisted, namely, that of selection; on 
this he will depend for removing what would 
otherwise be painful or disgusting in the pas- 
sion; he will feel that there is no necessity to 
trick out or to elevate nature: and, the more 
industriously he applies this principle, the 
deeper will be his faith that no words, which 
his fancy or imagination can suggest, will be 
to be compared with those which are the 
emanations of reality and truth. 

But it may be said by those who do not object 
to the general spirit of these remarks, that, as it 
is impossible for the poet to produce upon all 
occasions language as exquisitely fitted for the 
passion as that which the real passion itself 
suggests, it is proper that he should consider 
himself as in the situation of a translator, who 
deems himself justified when he substitutes 
excellencies of another kind for those which are 
unattainable by him; and endeavours occa- 
sionally to surpass his original, in order to make 



PREFACE TO THE "LYRICAL BALLADS" 



303 



some amends for the general inferiority to which 
he feels that he must submit. But this would 
lie to encourage idleness and unmanly despair. 
Further, it is I lie language of men who speak 
of what they do not understand; who talk 
of Poetry as of a matter of amusement and idle 
pleasure; who will converse with us as gravely 
about a taste for Poetry, as they express it, as 
if it were a thing as indifferent as a taste for 
Rope-dancing, or Frontiniac or Sherry. Aris- 
totle, I have been told, hath said, that Poetry 
is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so: 
its object is truth, not individual and local, 
but general, and operative; not standing upon 
external testimony, but carried alive into the 
heart by passion ; truth which is its own tes- 
timony, which gives strength and divinity to 
the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives 
them from the same tribunal. Poetry is the 
image of man and nature. The obstacles 
which stand in the way of the fidelity of the 
Biographer and Historian and of their conse- 
quent utility, are incalculably greater than those 
which are to be encountered by the Poet who 
has an adequate notion of the dignity of his 
art. The Poet writes under one restriction 
only, namely, that of the necessity of giving 
immediate pleasure to a human Being possessed 
of that information which may be expected 
from him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a 
mariner, an astronomer, or a natural philoso- 
pher, but as a Man. Except this one re- 
striction, there is no object standing between 
the Poet and the image of things; between 
this, and the Biographer and Historian there 
are a thousand. 

Nor let this necessity of producing immediate 
pleasure be considered as a degradation of the 
Poet's art. It is far otherwise. It is an ac- 
knowledgment of the beauty of the universe, 
an acknowledgment the more sincere, because 
it is not formal, but indirect; it is a task light 
and easy to him who looks at the world in the 
spirit of love : further, it is an homage paid to 
the native and naked dignity of man, to the 
grand elementary principle of pleasure, by 
which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves. 
We have no sympathy but what is propagated 
by pleasure: I would not be misunderstood; 
but wherever we sympathise with pain, it will 
be found that the sympathy is produced and 
carried on by subtle combinations with pleasure. 
We have no knowledge, that is, no general 
principles drawn from the contemplation of 
particular facts, but what has been built up 
by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. 



The Man of Science, the Chemist and Math- 
ematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts 
they may have had to struggle with, know and 
feel this. However painful may be the objects 
with which the Anatomist's knowledge is con- 
nected, he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; 
and where he has no pleasure he has no know- 
ledge. What then docs the Poet? He con- 
siders man and the objects that surround him 
as acting and reacting upon each other, so as 
to produce an infinite complexity of pain and 
pleasure; he considers man in his own nature 
and in his ordinary life as contemplating this 
with a certain quantity of immediate knowledge, 
with certain convictions, intuitions, and deduc- 
tions, which by habit become of the nature of 
intuitions; he considers him as looking upon 
this complex scene of ideas and sensations, and 
finding everywhere objects thai immediately ex- 
cite in him sympathies which, from the neces- 
sities of his nature, are accompanied by an 
overbalance of enjoyment. 

To this knowledge which all men carry about 
with them, and to these sympathies in which, 
without any other discipline than that of our 
daily life, we are fitted to take delight, the Poet 
principally directs his attention. He considers 
man and nature as essentially adapted to each 
other, and the mind of man as naturally the 
mirror of the fairest and most interesting quali- 
ties of nature. And thus the Poet, prompted 
by this feeling of pleasure which accompanies 
him through the whole course of his studies, 
converses with general nature with affections 
akin to those, which, through labour and length 
of time, the Man of Science has raised up in 
himself, by conversing with those particular 
parts of nature which are the objects of his 
studies. The knowledge both of the Poet and 
the Man of Science is pleasure ; but the know- 
ledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part 
of our existence, our natural and inalienable 
inheritance; the other is a personal and in- 
dividual acquisition, slow to come to us, and 
by no habitual and direct sympathy connecting 
us with our fellow-beings. The Man of Science 
seeks truth as a remote and unknown bene- 
factor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude : 
the Poet, singing a song in which all human 
beings join with him, rejoices in the presence 
of truth as our visible friend and hourly com- 
panion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit 
of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expres- 
sion which is in the countenance of all Science. 
Emphatically may it be said of the Poet, as 
Shakspeare hath said of man, "that he looks 



3°4 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



before and after." He is the rock of defence 

of human nature; an upholder and preserver, 
carrying everywhere with him relationship and 
love. In spite of difference of soil and climate, 
o\ language and manners, of laws and customs, 
in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and 
things violently destroyed, the Poet binds to- 
gether by passion and knowledge the vast 
empire of human society, as it is spread over 
the whole earth, and overall time. The objects 
of the Poet's thoughts are everywhere; though 
the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his 
favourite guides, yet he will follow whereso- 
ever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in 
which to move his wings. Poetry is the first 

and last of all knowledge it is as immortal 

BS the heart of man. If the labours of Men of 
Science should ever create any material 
revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, 
ami in the impressions which we habitually 
receive, the Poet will sleep then no more than at 
present, but he will be ready to follow the Steps 
of the Man of Science, not only in those general 
indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carry- 
ing sensation into the midst of the objects 
of the Science itself. The remotest discoveries 
of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, 
will be as proper objects of the Poet's art as 
any upon which it can be employed, if the time 
should ever come when these things shall be 
familiar to us, and the relations under which 
they are contemplated by the followers of 
these respective Sciences shall be manifestly 
and palpably material to us as enjoying and 
suffering beings. If the time should ever come 
when what is now called Science, thus familiar- 
ised to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, 
a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend 
his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and 
will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear 
ami genuine inmate of the household of man. — 
It is not, then, to be supposed that any one, who 
holds that sublime notion of Poetry which I 
have attempted to convey, will break in upon 
the sanctity and truth of his pictures by transi- 
tory and accidental ornaments, and endeavour 
to excite admiration of himself by arts, the 
necessity of which must manifestly depend upon 
the assumed meanness of his subject. 

What I have thus far said applies to Poetry 
in general; but especially to those parts of 
composition where the Poet speaks through 
the mouths of his characters; and upon this 
point it appears to have such weight, that I 
will conclude, there are few persons of good 
sense, who would not allow that the dramatic 



parts of composition are defective, in proportion 
as they deviate from the real language of nature, 
and are coloured by a diction of the Poet's 
own, either peculiar to him as an individual 
Poet or belonging simply to Poets in general, 
to a body of men who, from the circumstance 
of their compositions being in metre, it is ex- 
pected will employ a particular language. 

It is not, then, in the dramatic parts of com- 
position that we look for this distinction of 
language; but still it may be proper and neces- 
sary where the Poet speaks to us in his own 
person and character. To this I answer by 
referring my Reader to the description which 
I have before given of a Poet. Among the 
qualities which I have enumerated as principally 
conducing to form a Poet, is implied nothing 
differing in kind from other men, but only in 
degree. The sum of what I have there said is, 
that the Poet is chiefly distinguished from other 
men by a greater promptness to think and feel 
without immediate external excitement, and a 
greater power in expressing such thoughts and 
feelings as are produced in him in that manner. 
But these passions and thoughts and feelings 
are the general passions and thoughts and 
feelings of men. And with what are they 
connected? Undoubtedly with our moral 
sentiments and animal sensations, and with the 
causes which excite these; with the operations 
of the elements, and the appearances of the 
visible universe; with storm and sunshine, with 
the revolutions of the seasons, with cold and 
heat, with loss of friends and kindred, with 
injuries and resentments, gratitude and hope, 
with fear and sorrow. These, and the like, 
are the sensations and objects which the Poet 
describes, as they are the sensations of other 
men, ami the objects which interest them. The 
Poet thinks and feels in the spirit of the passions 
of men. How, then, can his language differ in 
any material degree from that of all other men 
who feel vividly and see clearly? It might be 
proved that it is impossible. But supposing 
that this were not the case, the Poet might then 
be allowed to use a peculiar language when 
expressing his feelings for his own gratification, 
or that of men like himself. But Poets do not 
write for Poets alone, but for men. Unless 
therefore we are advocates for that admiration 
which depends ujxm ignorance, and that pleas- 
ure which arises from hearing what we do not 
understand, the Poet must descend from this 
supposed height, and, in order to excite rational 
Sympathy, he must express himself as other 
men express themselves. To this it may be 



PREFACE TO THE "LYRICAL BALLADS" 



3o5 



added, that while he is only selecting from the 
real language of men, or, which amounts to 
the same thing, composing accurately in the 
spirit of such selection, he is treading upon safe 
ground, and we know what we are to expect 
from him. Our feelings arc the same with 
respect to metre; for, as it may be proper to 
remind the Reader, the distinction of metre 
is regular and uniform, and not, like that 
which is produced by what is usually called 
poetic diction, arbitrary, and subject to infinite 
caprices upon which no calculation whatever 
can be made. In the one case, the Reader is 
utterly at the mercy of the Poet respecting what 
imagery or diction he may choose to connect 
with the passion, whereas, in the other, the 
metre obeys certain laws, to which the Poet 
and Reader both willingly submit because they 
are certain, and because no interference is 
made by them with the passion but such as the 
concurring testimony of ages has shown to 
heighten and improve the pleasure which co- 
exists with it. 

It will now be proper to answer an obvious 
question, namely, Why, professing these opin- 
ions, have I written in verse? To this, in 
addition to such answer as is included in what 
I have already said, I reply, in the first place, 
Because, however I may have restricted my- 
self, there is still left open to me what con- 
fessedly constitutes the most valuable object 
of all writing, whether in prose or verse, the 
great and universal passions of men, the most 
general and interesting of their occupations, 
and the entire world of nature, from which I 
am at liberty to supply myself with endless 
combinations of forms and imagery. Now, 
supposing for a moment that whatever is 
interesting in these objects may be as vividly 
described in prose, why am I to be condemned, 
if to such description I have endeavoured to 
superadd the charm, which, by the consent of 
all nations, is acknowledged to exist in metrical 
language? To this, by such as are uncon- 
vinced by what I have already said, it may be 
answered that a very small part of the pleasure 
given by Poetry depends upon the metre, and 
that it is injudicious to write in metre, unless 
it be accompanied with the other artificial 
distinctions of style with which metre is usu- 
ally accompanied, and that, by such deviation, 
more will be lost from the shock which will 
thereby be given to the Reader's associations 
than will be counterbalanced by any pleasure 
which he can derive from the general power of 
numbers. In answer to those who still contend 



for the necessity of accompanying metre with 
certain appropriate colours of style in order 
to the accomplishment of its appropriate end, 
and who also, in my opinion, greatly underrate 
the power of metre in itself, it might, perhaps, 
as far as relates to these Poems, have been almost 
sufficient to observe, that Poems are extant, 
written upon more humble subjects, and in a 
more naked and simple style than I have aimed 
at, which poems have continued to give pleas- 
ure from generation to generation. Now, if 
nakedness and simplicity be a defect, the fact 
here mentioned affords a strong presumption 
that poems somewhat less naked and simple 
arc capable of affording pleasure at the present 
day; and, what I wished chiefly to attempt, at 
present, was to justify myself for having written 
under the impression of this belief. 

But I might point out various causes why, 
when the style is manly, and the subject of 
some; importance, words metrically arranged 
will long continue to impart such a pleasure to 
mankind as he who is sensible of the extent of 
that pleasure will be desirous to impart. The 
end of Poetry is to produce excitement in 
coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure. 
Now, by the supposition, excitement is an 
unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas 
and feelings do not, in that state, succeed each 
other in accustomed order. But, if the words 
by which this excitement is produced are in 
themselves powerful, or the images and feelings 
have an undue proportion of pain connected 
with them, there is some danger that the ex- 
citement may be carried beyond its proper 
bounds. Now the co-presence of something 
regular, something to which the mind has been 
accustomed in various moods and in a less 
excited state, cannot but have great efficacy 
in tempering and restraining the passion by an 
intertexture of ordinary feeling, and of feel- 
ing not strictly and necessarily connected with 
the passion. This is unquestionably true, and 
hence, though the opinion will at first appear 
paradoxical, from the tendency of metre to 
divest language, in a certain degree, of its 
reality, and thus to throw a sort of half con- 
sciousness of unsubstantial existence over the 
whole composition, there can be little doubt, 
but that more pathetic situations and senti- 
ments, that is, those which have a greater pro- 
portion of pain connected with them, may be 
endured in metrical composition, especially in 
rhyme, than in prose. The metre of the old 
ballads is very artless; yet they contain many 
passages which would illustrate this opinion, 



3<d6 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



and, I hope, if the Poems referred to be atten- 
tively perused, similar instances will be found in 
them. This opinion maybe further illustrated 
by appealing to the Reader's own experience of 
the reluctance with which lie comes to the re- 
perusal of the distressful parts of Clarissa Har- 
lowe, or the Gamester. While Shakspcarc's 
writings, in the most pathetic scenes, never 
act upon us, as pathetic, beyond the bounds 
of pleasure — an effect which, in a much 
greater degree than might at first be imagined, 
is to be ascribed to small, but continual and 
regular impulses of pleasurable surprise from 
the metrical arrangement. — On the other 
hand, (what it must be allowed will much more 
frequently happen,) if the Poet's words should 
be incommensurate with the passion, and 
inadequate to raise the Reader to a height of 
desirable excitement, then, (unless the Poet's 
choice of his metre has been grossly injudicious,) 
in the feelings of pleasure which the Reader 
has been accustomed to connect with metre in 
general, and in the feeling, whether cheerful 
or melancholy, which he has been accustomed 
to connect with that particular movement of 
metre, there will be found something which will 
greatly contribute to impart passion to the 
words, and to effect the complex end which the 
Poet proposes to himself. 

If I had undertaken a systematic defence of 
the theory upon which these poems are written, 
it would have been my duty to develop the 
various causes upon which the pleasure re- 
ceived from metrical language depends. Among 
the chief of these causes is to be reckoned a 
principle which must be well known to those 
who have made any of the Arts the object 
of accurate reflection; I mean the pleasure 
which the mind derives from the perception 
of similitude in dissimilitude. This principle 
is the great spring of the activity of our minds, 
and their chief feeder. From this principle 
the direction of the sexual appetite, and all the 
passions connected with it, take their origin: 
it is the life of our ordinary conversation; and 
upon the accuracy with which similitude in 
dissimilitude, and dissimilitude in similitude 
are perceived, depend our taste and our moral 
feelings. It would not have been a useless 
employment to have applied this principle to the 
consideration of metre, anil to have shown that 
metre is hence enabled to afford much pleasure, 
and to have pointed out in what manner that 
pleasure is produced. Hut my limits will not 

permit me to enter upon this subject, and I 
must content myself with a general summary. 



I have said that poetry is the spontaneous 
overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its 
origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity; 
the emotion is contemplated, till, by a species of 
reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, 
and an emotion, kindred to that which was be- 
fore the subject of contemplation, is gradually 
produced, and does itself actually exist in the 
mind. In this mood successful composition 
generally begins, and in a mood similar to this 
it is carried on; but the emotion of whatever 
kind, and in whatever degree, from various 
causes, is qualified by various pleasures, so 
that in describing any passions whatsoever, 
which an' voluntarily described, the mind will, 
upon the whole, be in a slate of enjoyment. 
Now, if Nature be thus cautious in preserving 
in a state of enjoyment a being thus employed, 
the Poet ought to profit by the lesson thus held 
forth to him, and ought especially to take 
can-, that, whatever passions he communicates 
to his Reader, those passions, if his Reader's 
mind be sound and vigorous, should always 
be accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. 
How the music of harmonious metrical lan- 
guage, the sense of difficulty overcome, and 
the blind association of pleasure which has been 
previously received from the works of rhyme 
or metre of the same or similar construction, 
and indistinct perception perpetually renewed 
of language closely resembling that of real 
life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre, 
differing from it so widely — all these im- 
perceptibly make up a complex feeling of 
delight, which is of the most important use 
in tempering the painful feeling which will 
always be found intermingled with powerful 
descriptions of the deeper passions. This 
effect is always produced in pathetic and im- 
passioned poetry; while, in lighter composi- 
tions, the ease and gracefulness with which 
the Poet manages his numbers are themselves 
confessedly a principal source of the gratifi- 
cation of the Reader. I might, perhaps, in- 
clude all which it is necessary to say upon this 
subject, by affirming what few persons will 
deny, that, of two descriptions either of passions, 
manners, or characters, each of them equally 
well executed, the one in prose and the other in 
verse, the verse will be read a hundred times 
where the prose is read once. We see that 
Pope, by the power of verse alone, has con- 
trived to render the plainest common sense 
interesting, and even frequently to invest it 
with the appearance of passion. In con- 
sequence of these convictions I related in metre 



PREFACE TO THE "LYRICAL BALLADS" 



3°7 



the Tale of Goody Blake and Harry Gill, which 
is one of the rudest of this collection. I 
wished to draw attention to the truth, that the 
power of the human imagination is sufficient 
to produce such changes even in our physical 
nature as might almost appear miraculous. 
The truth is an important one; the fact (for 
it is a. fact) is a valuable illustration of it: and 
I have the satisfaction of knowing that it 
has been communicated to many hundreds of 
people who would never have heard of it, had 
it not been narrated as a Ballad, and in a more 
impressive metre than is usual in Ballads. 

Having thus explained a few of the reasons 
why I have written in verse, and why I have 
chosen subjects from common life, and en- 
deavoured to bring my language near to the 
real language of men, if I have been too minute 
in pleading my own cause, I have at the same 
time been treating a subject of general interest; 
and it is for this reason that I request the 
Reader's permission to add a few words with 
reference solely to these particular poems, and 
to some defects which will probably be found 
in them. I am sensible that my associations 
must have sometimes been particular instead 
of general, and that, consequently, giving to 
things a false importance, sometimes from 
diseased impulses, I may have written upon 
unworthy subjects; but I am less apprehensive 
on this account, than that my language may 
frequently have suffered from those arbitrary 
connections of feelings and ideas with particular 
words and phrases, from which no man can 
altogether protect himself. Hence I have no 
doubt, that, in some instances, feelings, even 
of the ludicrous, may be given to my Readers 
by expressions which appeared to me tender and 
pathetic. Such faulty expressions, were I con- 
vinced they were faulty at present, and that 
they must necessarily continue to be so, I 
would willingly take all reasonable pains to 
correct. But it is dangerous to make these 
alterations on the simple authority of a few 
individuals, or even of certain classes of men; 
for where the understanding of an Author is 
not convinced, or his feelings altered, this 
cannot be done without great injury to himself: 
for his own feelings are his stay and support; 
and, if he sets them aside in one instance, he 
may be induced to repeat this act till his mind 
loses all confidence in itself, and becomes 
utterly debilitated. To this it may be added, 
that the Reader ought never to forget that he 
is himself exposed to the same errors as the 
Poet, and, perhaps, in a much greater degree: 



for there can be no presumption in saying, that 
it is not probable he will be so well acquainted 
with the various stages of meaning through 
which words have passed, or with the fickle- 
ness or stability of the relations of particular 
ideas to each other; and, above all, since he is 
so much less interested in the subject, he may 
decide lightly and carelessly. 

Long as I have detained my Reader, I hope 
he will permit me to caution him against a 
mode of false criticism which has been applied 
to Poetry, in which the language closely re- 
sembles that of life and nature. Such verses 
have been triumphed over in parodies of 
which Dr. Johnson's stanza is a fair specimen. 

I put my hat upon my head 
And walked into the Strand, 
And there I met another man 
Whose hat was in his hand. 

Immediately under these lines I will place 
one of the most justly-admired stanzas of the 
"Babes in the Wood." 

These pretty babes with hand in hand 
Went wandering up and down; 
But never more they saw the Man 
Approaching from the Town. 

In both these stanzas the words, and the 
order of the words, in no respect differ from 
the most unimpassioned conversation. There 
are words in both, for example, "the Strand," 
and "the Town," connected with none but 
the most familiar ideas; yet the one stanza 
we admit as admirable, and the other as a 
fair example of the superlatively contemptible. 
Whence arises this difference? Not from the 
metre, not from the language, not from the 
order of the words; but the matter expressed 
in Dr. Johnson's stanza is contemptible. The 
proper method of treating trivial and simple 
verses, to which Dr. Johnson's stanza would 
be a fair parallelism, is not to say, This is a 
bad kind of poetry, or, This is not poetry; 
but, This wants sense; it is neither interesting 
in itself, nor can lead to anything interesting; 
the images neither originate in that sane state 
of feeling which arises out of thought, nor 
can excite thought or feeling in the Reader. 
This is the only sensible manner of dealing 
with such verses. Why trouble yourself about 
the species till you have previously decided 
upon the genus? Why take pains to prove 
that an ape is not a Newton, when it is self- 
evident that he is not a man ? 



3 o8 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 



I have one request to make of my Reader, 

which is, that in judging these Poems he 
would decide by his own feelings genuinely, 
and not by reflection upon what will probably 
be the judgment of others. How common is 
it to hear a person say, "I myself do not object 
to this style of composition, or this or that 
expression, but, to such and such classes of 
people, it will appear mean or ludicrous!" 
This mode of criticism, so destructive of all 
sound unadulterated judgment, is almost uni- 
versal: I have therefore to request, that the 
Reader would abide independently by his 
own feelings, and that, if he finds himself 
affected, he would not suffer such conjectures 
to interfere with his pleasure. 

If an Author, by any single composition, 
has impressed us with respect for his talents, 
it is useful to consider this as affording a pre- 
sumption, that on other occasions where we 
have been displeased, he, nevertheless, may 
not have written ill or absurdly; and, further, 
to give him so much credit for this one com- 
position as may induce us to review what has 
displeased us, with more care than we should 
otherwise have bestowed upon it. This is not 
only an act of justice, but, in our decisions 
upon poetry especially, may conduce, in a 
high degree, to the improvement of our own 
taste: for an accurate taste in poetry, and in 
all the other arts, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has 
observed, is an acquired talent, which can 
only be produced by thought and a long- 
continued intercourse with the best models of 
composition. This is mentioned, not with so 
ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most 
inexperienced Reader from judging for him- 
self (I have already said that I wish him to 
judge for himself), but merely to temper the 
rashness of decision, and to suggest, that, if 
Poetry be a subject on which much time has 
not been bestowed, the judgment may be 
erroneous; and that, in many cases, it neces- 
sarily will be so. 

I know that nothing would have so effectu- 
ally contributed to further the end which I 
have in view, as to have shown of what kind 
the pleasure is, and how that pleasure is 
produced, which is confessedly produced by 
metrical composition essentially different from 
that which I have here endeavoured to recom- 
mend: for the Reader will say that he has 
been pleased by such composition ; and what 
can I do more for him? The power of any 
art is limited; and he will suspect, that, if I 
propose to furnish him with new friends, it is 



only upon condition of his abandoning his old 
friends. Besides, as I have said, the Reader 
is himself conscious of the pleasure which he 
has received from such composition, compo- 
sition to which he has peculiarly attached the 
endearing name of Poetry; and all men feel 
an habitual gratitude, and something of an 
honourable bigotry for the objects which have 
long continued to please them ; we not only 
wish to be pleased, but to be pleased in that 
particular way in which we have been accus- 
tomed to be pleased. There is a host of 
arguments in these feelings; and I should be 
the less able to combat them successfully, as 
I am willing to allow, that, in order entirely to 
enjoy the Poetry which I am recommending, it 
would be necessary to give up much of what 
is ordinarily enjoyed. But, would my limits 
have permitted me to point out how this pleas- 
sure is produced, I might have removed many 
obstacles, and assisted my Reader in perceiving 
that the powers of language are not so limited 
as he may suppose; and that it is possible for 
poetry to give other enjoyments, of a purer, 
more lasting, and more exquisite nature. 
This part of my subject I have not altogether 
neglected; but it has been less my present aim 
to prove, that the interest excited by some other 
kinds of poetry is less vivid, and less worthy 
of the nobler powers of the mind, than to offer 
reasons for presuming, that, if the object which 
I have proposed to myself were adequately at- 
tained, a species of poetry would be produced, 
which is genuine poetry; in its nature well 
adapted to interest mankind permanently, 
and likewise important in the multiplicity and 
quality of its moral relations. 

From what has been said, and from a perusal 
of the Poems, the Reader will be able clearly 
to perceive the object which I have proposed 
to myself; he will determine how far I have 
attained this object; and, what is a much more 
important question, whether it be worth attain- 
ing; and upon the decision of these two ques- 
tions will rest my claim to the approbation of 
the Public. 

SIR WALTER SCOTT (i 771-1832) 

WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE 

From REDGAUNTLET 

Ye maun have heard of Sir Robert Red- 
gauntlet of that Ilk, who lived in these parts 
before the dear years. The country will king 



WANDERING WILLIE'S ' TALE 



309 



mind him; and our fathers used to draw 
breath thick if ever they heard him named. 
He was out wi' the Hielandmen in Montrose's 
time; and again he was in the hills wi' Glen- 
cairn in the saxteen hundred and fifty-twa; 
and sae when King Charles the Second came 
in, wha was in sic favour as the Laird of Red- 
gauntlet? He was knighted at Lonon court, 
wi' the King's ain sword; and being a redhot 
prelatist, he came down here, rampauging 
like a lion, with commissions of lieutenancy, 
(and of lunacy, for what I ken,) to put down 
a' the Whigs and Covenanters in the country. 
Wild wark they made of it; for the Whigs 
were as dour as the Cavaliers were fierce, 
and it was which should first tire the other. 
Redgauntlet was aye for the strong hand; 
and his name is kend as wide in the country 
as Claverhouse's or Tarn Dalyell's. Glen, nor 
dargle, nor mountain, nor cave, could hide 
the puir hill-folk when Redgauntlet was out 
with bugle and bloodhound after them, as if 
they had been sae mony deer. And troth 
when they fand them, they didna mak muckle 
mair ceremony than a Hielandman wi' a roe- 
buck — It was just, "Will ye tak the test?" 
• — if not, "Make ready — present — fire!" 
and there lay the recusant. 

Far and wide was Sir Robert hated and 
feared. Men thought he had a direct compact 
with Satan — that he was proof against steel 
— and that bullets happed aff his buff -coat 
like hailstanes from a hearth — that he had a 
mear that would turn a hare on the side of 
Carrifra-gawns — and muckle to the same 
purpose, of whilk mair anon. The best bless- 
ing they wared on him was, "Deil scowp wi' 
Redgauntlet!" He wasna a bad master to 
his ain folk, though, and was weel aneugh 
liked by his tenants; and as for the lackies 
and troopers that raid out wi' him to the per- 
secutions, as the Whigs caa'd those killing 
times, they wad hae drunken themsells blind 
to his health at ony time. 

Now you are to ken that my gudesire lived 
on Redgauntlet's grund — they ca' the place 
Primrose-Knowe. We had lived on the grund, 
and under the Redgauntlets, since the riding- 
days, and lang before. It was a pleasant bit; 
and I think the air is callerer and fresher 
there than ony where else in the country. It's 
a' deserted now; and I sat on the broken 
door-cheek three days since, and was glad I 
couldna see the plight the place was in; but 
that's a' wide o' the mark. There dwelt my 
gudesire, Steenie Steenson, a rambling, rattling 



chiel' he had been in his young days, and 
could play weel on the pipes; he was famous 
at "Hoopers and Girders" — a' Cumberland 
couldna touch him at "Jockie Lattin" — and 
he had the finest finger for the backlilt be- 
tween Berwick and Carlisle. The like o' 
Steenie wasna the sort that they made Whigs o\ 
And so he became a Tory, as they ca' it, which 
we now ca' Jacobites, just out of a kind of 
needcessity, that he might belang to some side 
or other. He had nae ill-will to the Whig 
bodies, and liked little to see the blude rin, 
though, being obliged to follow Sir Robert in 
hunting and hosting, watching and warding, 
he saw muckle mischief, and maybe did some, 
that he couldna avoid. 

Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with 
his master, and kend a' the folks about the 
castle, and was often sent for to play the pipes 
when they were at their merriment. Auld 
Dougal MacCallum, the butler, that had fol- 
lowed Sir Robert through gude and ill, thick 
and thin, pool and stream, was specially fond 
of the pipes, and aye gae my gudesire his gude 
word wi' the Laird; for Dougal could turn 
his master round his finger. 

Weel, round came the Revolution, and it 
had like to have broken the hearts baith of 
Dougal and his master. But the change was 
not a'thegether sae great as they feared, and 
other folk thought for. The Whigs made an 
unco crawing what they wad do with their 
auld enemies, and in special wi' Sir Robert 
Redgauntlet. But there were ower mony 
great folks dipped in the same doings, to mak 
a spick and span new warld. So Parliament 
passed it a' ower easy ; and Sir Robert, bating 
that he was held to hunting foxes instead of 
Covenanters, remained just the man he was. 
His revel was as loud, and his hall as weel 
lighted, as ever it had been, though maybe he 
lacked the fines of the nonconformists, that 
used to come to stock his larder and cellar; 
for it is certain he began to be keener about 
the rents than his tenants used to find him 
before, and they behoved to be prompt to the 
rent-day, or else the Laird wasna pleased. 
And he was sic an awsome body, that naebody 
cared to anger him ; for the oaths he swore, 
and the rage that he used to get into, and the 
looks that he put on, made men sometimes 
think him a devil incarnate. 

Weel, my gudesire was nae manager — no 
that he was a very great misguider — but he 
hadna the saving gift, and he got twa terms' 
rent in arrear. He got the first brash at 



3io 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 



Whitsunday put ower wi' fair word and piping ; 
but when Martinmas came, there was a sum- 
mons from the grund-officer to come wi' the 
rent on a day preceese, or else Steenie behoved 
to flit. Sair wark he had to get the siller; 
but he was weel-freended, and at last he got 
the haill scraped thegether — a thousand merks 
— the maist of it was from a neighbour they 
caa'd Laurie Lapraik — a sly tod. Laurie 
had walth o' gear — could hunt wi' the hound 
and rin wi' the hare — and be Whig or Tory, 
saunt or sinner, as the wind stood. He was a 
professor in this Revolution warld, but he 
liked an orra sough of this warld, and a tune 
on the pipes weel aneugh at a bytime; and 
abune a', he thought he had gude security for 
the siller he lent my gudesire ower the stock- 
ing at Primrose-Knowe. 

Away trots my gudesire to Redgauntlet 
Castle wi' a heavy purse and a light heart, 
glad to be out of the Laird's danger. Weel, 
the first thing he learned at the Castle was, 
that Sir Robert had fretted himsell into a fit 
of the gout, because he did not appear before 
twelve o'clock. It wasna a'thegether for sake 
of the money, Dougal thought; but because 
he didna like to part wi' my gudesire aff the 
grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, and 
brought him into the great oak parlour, and 
there sat the Laird his leesome lane, excepting 
that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured 
jackanape, that was a special pet of his; a 
cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured 
trick it played — ill to please it was, and 
easily angered — ran about the haill castle, 
chattering and yowling, and pinching, and bit- 
ing folk, specially before ill-weather, or dis- 
turbances in the State. Sir Robert caa'd it 
Major Weir, after the warlock that was burnt ; 
and few folk liked either the name or the 
conditions of the creature — they thought 
there was something in it by ordinar — and 
my gudesire was not just easy in mind when 
the door shut on him, and he saw himself in 
the room wi' naebody but the Laird, Dougal 
MacCallum, and the Major, a thing that hadna 
chanced to him before. 

Sir Robert sat, or, I should say, lay, in a 
great armed chair, wi' his grand velvet gown, 
and his feet on a cradle; for he had baith 
gout and gravel, and his face looked as gash 
and ghastly as Satan's. Major Weir sat 
opposite to him, in a red laced coat, and the 
Laird's wig on his head ; and aye as Sir Robert 
girned wi' pain, the jackanape girned too, like 
a sheep's-head between a pair of tangs — an 



ill-faur'd, fearsome couple they were. The 
Laird's buff-coat was hung on a pin behind 
him, and his broadsword and his pistols within 
reach; for he keepit up the auld fashion of 
having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled 
day and night, just as he used to do when he 
was able to loup on horseback, and away after 
ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings of. 
Some said it was for fear of the Whigs taking 
vengeance, but I judge it was just his auld 
custom — he wasna gien to fear ony thing. 
The rental-book, wi' its black cover and brass 
clasps, was lying beside him ; and a book of 
sculduddry sangs was put betwixt the leaves, 
to keep it open at the place where it bore 
evidence against the Goodman of Primrose- 
Knowe, as behind the hand with his mails 
and duties. Sir Robert gave my gudesire a 
look, as if he would have withered his heart 
in his bosom. Ye maun ken he had a way of 
bending his brows, that men saw the visible 
mark of a horse-shoe in his forehead, deep 
dinted, as if it had been stamped there. 

"Are ye come light-handed, ye son of a 
toom whistle?" said Sir Robert. "Zounds! 
if -you are" — 

My gudesire, with as gude a countenance as 
he could put on, made a leg, and placed the 
bag of money on the table wi' a dash, like a 
man that does something clever. The Laird 
drew it to him hastily — "Is it all here, Steenie, 
man?" 

"Your honour will find it right," said my 
gudesire. 

"Here, Dougal," said the Laird, "gie 
Steenie a tass of brandy down stairs, till I 
count the siller and write the receipt." 

But they werena weel out of the room, when 
Sir Robert gied a yelloch that garr'd the Castle 
rock. Back ran Dougal — in flew the livery- 
men — yell on yell gied the Laird, ilk ane 
mair awfu' than the ither. My gudesire knew 
not whether to stand or flee, but he ventured 
back into the parlour, where a' was gaun 
hirdy-girdie — naebody to say "come in," or 
"gae out." Terribly the Laird roared for 
cauld water to his feet, and wine to cool his 
throat; and Hell, hell, hell, and its flames, 
was aye the word in his mouth. They brought 
him water, and when they plunged his svvoln 
feet into the tub, he cried out it was burning; 
and folk say that it did bubble and sparkle 
like a seething caldron. He flung the cup at 
Dougal's head, and said he had given him 
blood instead of burgundy; and, sure aneugh, 
the lass washed clotted blood aff the carpet 



WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE 



3ii 



the neist day. The jackanape they caa'd 
Major Weir, it jibbered and cried as if it was 
mocking its master; my gudesire's head was 
like to turn — he forgot baith siller and re- 
ceipt, and down stairs he banged; but as he 
ran, the shrieks came faint and fainter; there 
was a deep-drawn shivering groan, and word 
gaed through the Castle, that the Laird was 
dead. 

Weel, away came my gudesire, wi' his finger 
in his mouth, and his best hope was, that 
Dougal had seen the money-bag, and heard the 
Laird speak of writing the receipt. The young 
Laird, now Sir John, came from Edinburgh, 
to see things put to rights. Sir John and his 
father never gree'd weel. Sir John had 
been bred an advocate, and afterwards sat 
in the last Scots Parliament and voted for the 
Union, having gotten, it was thought, a rug of 
the compensations — if his father could have 
come out of his grave, he would have brained 
him for it on his awn hearthstane. Some 
thought it was easier counting with the auld 
rough Knight than the fair-spoken young ane 
— but mair of that anon. 

Dougal MacCallum, poor body, neither grat 
nor grained, but gaed about the house looking 
like a corpse, but directing, as was his duty, 
a' the order of the grand funeral. Now, 
Dougal looked aye waur and waur when night 
was coming, and was aye the last to gang to 
his bed, whilk was in a little round, just oppo- 
site the chamber of dais, whilk his master 
occupied while he was living, and where he 
now lay in state, as they caa'd it, weel-a-day! 
The night before the funeral, Dougal could 
keep his awn counsel nae langer; he came 
doun with his proud spirit, and fairly asked 
auld Hutcheon to sit in his room with him 
for an hour. When they were in the round, 
Dougal took ae tass of brandy to himsell, and 
gave another to Hutcheon, and wished him all 
health and lang life, and said that, for himsell, 
he wasna lang for this world; for that, every 
night since Sir Robert's death, his silver call 
had sounded from the state chamber, just as 
it used to do at nights in his lifetime, to call 
Dougal to help to turn him in his bed. Dougal 
said, that being alone with the dead on that 
floor of the tower, (for naebody cared to wake 
Sir Robert Redgauntlet like another corpse,) 
he had never daured to answer the call, but 
that now his conscience checked him for neg- 
lecting his duty; for "though death breaks 
service," said MacCallum, '' it shall never 
break my service to Sir Robert; and I will 



answer his next whistle, so be you will stand 
by me, Hutcheon." 

Hutcheon had nae will to the wark, but he 
had stood by Dougal in battle and broil, and 
he wad not fail him at this pinch; so down 
the carles sat ower a stoup of brandy, and 
Hutcheon, who was something of a clerk, 
would have read a chapter of the Bible; but 
Dougal would hear naething but a blaud of 
Davie Lindsay, whilk was the waur prepara- 
tion. 

When midnight came, and the house was 
quiet as the grave, sure enough the silver 
whistle sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir 
Robert was blowing it, and up got the twa 
auld servingmen, and tottered into the room 
where the dead man lay. Hutcheon saw 
aneugh at the first glance; for there were 
torches in the room, which showed him the 
foul fiend, in his ain shape, sitting on the 
Laird's coffin ! Ower he cowped as if he had 
been dead. He could not tell how lang he 
lay in a trance at the door, but when he gathered 
himself, he cried on his neighbour, and getting 
nae answer, raised the house, when Dougal 
was found lying dead within twa steps of the 
bed where his master's coffin was placed. 
As for the whistle, it was gane anes and aye; 
but mony a time was it heard at the top of 
the house on the bartizan, and amang the auld 
chimneys and turrets where the howlets have 
their nests. Sir John hushed the matter up, 
and the funeral passed over without mair 
bogle-wark. 

But when a' was ower, and the Laird was 
beginning to settle his affairs, every tenant 
was called up for his arrears, and my gudesire 
for the full sum that stood against him in 
the rental-book. Weel, away he trots to the 
Castle, to tell his story, and there he is intro- 
duced to Sir John, sitting in his father's chair, 
in deep mourning, with weepers and hanging 
cravat, and a small walking rapier by his side, 
instead of the auld broadsword that had a 
hundred-weight of steel about it, what with 
blade, chape, and basket-hilt. I have heard 
their communing so often tauld ower, that 
I almost think I was there mysell, though I 
couldna be born at the time. (In fact, Alan, 
my companion mimicked, with a good deal of 
humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of the 
tenant's address, and the hypocritical melan- 
choly of the Laird's reply. His grandfather, 
he said, had, while he spoke, his eye fixed on 
the rental-book, as if it were a mastiff -dog that 
he was afraid would spring up and bite him.) 



3 12 



SIR W'ALTKR SCOTT 



"I wuss ye jov, sir, of the head seat, and 
the white loaf, ami the braid lairdship. Your 
father was a kind man to friends and followers; 
muckle grace to you, Sir John, to fill his 

shoon - his boots, 1 SUld say, for he seldom 
wore shoon, unless il were muils when he had 

the gout." 
"Ay, Steenie," quoth the Laird, sighing 

deeply, and putting his napkin to his een, 
"his was a sudden call, and he will he missed 

in the country; no time to set his house in 
order weel prepared Godward, no doubt, 

which is the root of the matter but left US 
behind a tangled hesp to wind, Steenie. — 
Hem! hem! We maun go to business, Stee- 
nie; much to ^o, and little time to do it in." 

Here he opened the fatal volume. 1 have 
heard of a thing they eall Doomsday-book — 
1 am clear it has been a rental of back ganging 
tenants. 

"Stephen," said Sir John, still in the same 
soft, sleekit tone of voiee "Stephen Steven- 
son, or Steenson, ye are down here for a 
year's rent behind the hand due at last 
term." 

Stephen. — "Please your honour, Sir John, 
1 paid it to your father." 

Sir John. - "Ye took a receipt, then, 
doubtless, Stephen; ami can produce it?" 

Stephen. — "Indeed, 1 hadna time, an it 
like your honour; for nae sooner had 1 set 
doun the siller, and just as his honour. Sir 
Robert, that's gaen, drew it till him to count 
it, and write out the receipt, he was ta'en wi' 
the pains that removed him." 

"That was unlucky," said Sir John, after a 
pause. "Hut ye maybe paid it in the pres- 
ence of somebody. 1 want but a talis quaiis 
evidence, Stephen. 1 would go ower strictly 

to work with no \\>or man." 

Stephen. — "Troth, Sir John, there was nae- 
body in the room but Dougal MaeC'allum the 
butler. Hut, as your honour kens, he has e'en 
followed his auld master." 

"Very unlucky again, Stephen," said Sir 
John, without altering his voiee a single note. 
"The man to whom ye paid the money is 
dead and the man who witnessed the pay- 
ment is dead too and the siller, which should 
have been to the fore, is neither seen nor heard 
tell of in the repositories. How am I to be- 
lieve a' this?" 

Stephen. — "I dinna ken, your honour; 
but there is a bit memorandum note of the 
very eoins; for, God help me I 1 had to 
borrow out of twenty purses; and I am sure 



that ilka man there set down will take his grit 
oath for what purpose I borrowed the money." 

Sir John. — "I have little doubt ye bor- 
rowed the money, Steenie. It is the payment to 
my father that 1 want to have some proof of." 

Stephen. — "The siller maun be about the 
house, Sir John. And since your honour never 
got it, and his honour that was eanna have 
taen it wi' him, maybe some of the family 
may haw- seen it." 

Sir John. "We will examine the servants, 
Stephen; that is but reasonable." 

But lackey and lass, and page and groom, 
all denied stoutly that they had ever seen such 
a bag of money as my gudesire described. 
What was waur, he had unluckily not men- 
tioned to any living soul of them his purpose 
of paying his rent. Ac quean had noticed 
something under his arm, but she took it for 

the pipes. 

Sir John Redgauntlet ordered the servants 
out of the room, and then said to my gudesire, 
"Now, Steenie, ye see ye have fair play; and, 
as 1 have little doubt ye ken better where to 
find the siller than ony other body, 1 beg, in 
fair terms, and for your own sake, that you 
will end this fasherie; for, Stephen, ye maun 
pay or flit." 

"The Lord forgie your opinion," said 
Stephen, driven almost to his wit's end — "I 
am an honest man." 

"So am 1, Stephen," said his honour; "and 
so are all the folks in the house, I hope. Hut 
if there be a knave amongst us, it must be 
he that tells the story he cannot prove. He 
paused, and then added, mair sternly, "If 1 
understand your trick, sir, you want to take 
advantage of some malicious reports concern- 
ing things in this family, and particularly 
respecting my father's sudden death, thereby 
to cheat me out of the money, and perhaps 
take away my character, by insinuating that 1 
have received the rent 1 am demanding. — ■ 
Where do you suppose this money to be? — 
1 insist upon knowing." 

My gudesire saw every thing look so muckle 
against him, that he grew nearly desperate — 
however, he shifted from one foot to another, 
looked to every corner of the room, and made 
no answer. 

"Speak out, sirrah," said the Laird, assum- 
ing a look of his father's, a very particular ane, 
which he had when he was angry — it seemed 
as if the wrinkles of his frown made that self- 
same fearful shape of a horse's shoe in the 
middle of his brow; — "Speak out, sir! 1 



WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE 



3 '3 



will know your thoughts; —do you suppose 
that 1 have this money ?" 

"Far be it frac me to say so," said Stephen. 

"bo you charge any of my people willi 
having taken it?" 

"I wad be laith to charge them that may 
be innocent," said my gudesire; "and if there 
be any one that is guilty, I have aae proof." 

".Somewhere the money must be, if there is 
a word of truth in your story," said Sir John; 
"I ask where you think it is — and demand a 
Correct answer?" 

"In hell, if you will have my thoughts of 
it," said my gudesire, driven to extremity, 
"in hell! with your father, his jackanape, and 
his silver whistle." 

Down the stairs he ran, (for the parlour was 
nae place for him after such a word,) and he 
heard the Laird swearing blood and wounds, 
behind him, as fast as ever did Sir Robert, 
and roaring for the bailie and the baron- 
oflicer. 

Away rode my gudesire to his chief creditor, 
(him they caa'd Laurie Lapraikj to try if he 
could make ony thing out of him; but when 
he tauld his story, he got but the warst word 
in his wame — thief, beggar, and dyvour, 
were the saftest terms; and to the boot of 
these hard terms, Laurie brought, up the auld 
story of his dipping his hand in the blood of 
God s saunts, just as if a tenant could have 
helped riding with the Laird, and that a laird 
like Sir Robert. Redgauntlet. My gudesire 
was, by this time far beyond the bounds of 
patience, and, while he and Laurie were at 
deil speed the liars, he was wanchancie aneugh 
to abuse Lapraik's doctrine as weel as the 
man, and said things that garr'd folks' flesh 
grue that heard them; he; wasna just him- 
sell, and he had lived wi' a wild set in his clay. 

At last they parted, and my gudesire was to 
ride hame through the wood of I'itmurkie, 
that is a' fou of black firs, as they say. — I 
ken the wood, but the firs may be black or 
white for what I can tell. — At the entry of 
the wood there is a wild common, and on the 
edge of the; common, a little lonely change- 
house, that was keepit then by an ostler wife, 
they sulci hac; c aa'd her Tibbie Law, and there 
puir Steenie cried for a mutchkin of brandy, 
for he; had had no refreshment the hail! day. 
Tibbie was earnest wi' him to take a bile- of 
meat, but he couldna think o't, nor would he 
take his fool out of tin; stirrup, and took off 
the brandy wholely at twa draughts, and 
named a toast at each: — the first was, the 



memory of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, and might 
he never lie quiet in his grave till he had 
righted his poor Ixmd-tenant; and the: second 
was, a health to Man's Lncmy, if he would 
but get him back the- poe k of siller, or tell 
him what came o't, for he; saw the; haill world 
was like to regard him as a thief and a cheat, 
and he took that waur than even the ruin <;f 
his house and hauld. 

On he rode, little; caring where. It was a 
dark night turned, and the frees made it yet 
darker, and he let the; beast take its a in road 
through the; wood; when all of a sudden, 
from lireel and wearied that it was before, 
the nag began to spring, and flee, and slenel, 

that my gudesire could hardly keep the saddle. 

— Upon the whilk, a horseman, suddenly 
riding up beside; him, said, "That's a mettle 
beasl of yours, freend; will you sell him?" 

— So saying, he; Winched the horse's neck with 
his riding-wand, and it fell into its anb J heigh-ho 
of a stumbling trot. "Rut his spunk's soon 
out e,f him, J think," continued the: stranger, 
"and that is like mony a man's courage, that 
thinks he; wad do great things till he come to 
the; proof." 

My gudesire scarce listened to this, but 
Spurred his horse, with "Gudc e'en to you, 
freend," 

but it's like the stranger was ane that doesna 
lightly yield his point; for, ride as Steenie 
liked, he was aye; beside him at the self-same 
pace. At last my gudesire, Steenie Stecnson, 
grew half angry; and, to say the truth, half 
feared. 

"What is it that ye want with me, freend?" 
he said, "If ye be a ro\A>er, I have nae money; 
if ye; be a leal man, wanting company, J have; 
nae heart, to mirth or speaking; and if ye 
want to ken the road, I scarce ken it myself." 

"Jf you will tell me your grief," said the 
stranger, "I am one, that, though I have been 
sair miscaa'd in the world, am the only hand 
for helping my freends." 

Set my gudesire, to ease his ain heart, mair 
than from any hope of help, told him the 
story from beginning to end. 

"It's a hard pinch," said the stranger; 
"but I think I can help you." 

"Jf you could lend the money, sir, and take 
a lang day — I ken nae other help on earth," 
said my gudesire. 

"But there may be some under the earth," 
said the stranger. "Come, I'll be frank wi' 
you; I could lend you the money on bond, 
but you would maybe scruple my terms. 



3M 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 



Now, I can tell you, that your auld Laird is 
disturbed in his grave by your curses, and the 
wailing of your family, and if ye daur ven- 
ture to go to see him, he will give you the 
receipt." 

My gudesire's hair stood on end at this 
proposal, but, he thought his companion might 
be some humoursome chield that was trying to 
frighten him, and might end with lending him 
the money. Besides, he was bauld wi' brandy, 
and desparate wi' distress; and he said he had 
courage to go to the gate of hell, and a step 
farther, for that receipt. — The stranger laughed. 

Weel, they rode on through the thickest of 
the wood, when, all of a sudden, the horse 
stopped at the door of a great house; and, 
but that he knew the place was ten miles off, 
my father would have thought he was at Red- 
gauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer 
court-yard, through the muckle faulding yetts, 
and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole 
front of the house was lighted, and there were 
pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and 
deray within as used to be at Sir Robert's 
house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons. 
They lap off, and my gudesire, as seemed to 
him, fastened his horse to the very ring he 
had tied him to that morning, when he gaed 
to wait on the young Sir John. 

"God!" said my gudesire, "if Sir Robert's 
death be but a dream!" 

He knocked at the ha' door just as he was 
wont, and his auld acquaintance, Dougal 
MacCallum, — just after his wont, too, — 
came to open the door, and said, "Piper 
Steenie, are ye there, lad? Sir Robert has 
been crying for you." 

My gudesire was like a man in a dream — 
he looked for the stranger, but he was gane 
for the time. At last he just tried to say, 
"Ha! Dougal Driveower, are ye living? I 
thought ye had been dead." 

"Never fash yoursell wi' me," said Dougal, 
"but look to yoursell; and see ye tak naething 
frae ony body here, neither meat, drink, or 
siller, except just the receipt that is your ain." 

So saying, he led the way out through halls 
and trances that were weel kend to my gude- 
sire, and into the auld oak parlour; and there 
was as much singing of profane sangs, and 
birling of red wine, and speaking blasphemy 
and sculduddry, as had ever been in Red- 
gauntlet Castle when it was at the blithest. 

But, Lord take us in keeping, what a set 
of ghastly revellers they were that sat around 
that table ! — My gudesire kend mony that 



had long before gane to their place, for often 
had he piped to the most part in the hall of 
Redgauntlet. There was the fierce Middle- 
ton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the crafty 
Lauderdale; and Dalyell, with his bauld head 
and a beard to his girdle; and Earlshall, with 
Cameron's blude on his hand; and wild Bon- 
shaw, that tied blessed Mr. Cargill's limbs till 
the blude sprung; and Dunbarton Douglas, 
the twice-turned traitor baith to country and 
king. There was the Bluidy Advocate Mac- 
Kenyie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom, 
had been to the rest as a god. And there was 
Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived, 
with his long, dark, curled locks, streaming 
down over his laced buff-coat, and his left 
hand always on his right spule-blade, to hide 
the wound that the silver bullet had made. 
He sat apart from them all, and looked at 
them with a melancholy, haughty countenance; 
while the rest hallooed, and sung, and laughed, 
that the room rang. But their smiles were 
fearfully contorted from time to time; and 
their laughter passed into such wild sounds, 
as made my gudesire's very nails grow blue, 
and chilled the marrow in his banes. 

They that waited at the table were just the 
wicked serving-men and troopers, that had 
done their work and cruel bidding on earth. 
There was the Lang Lad of the Nethertown, 
that helped to take Argyle; and the Bishop's 
summoner, that they called the Deil's Rattle- 
bag; and the wicked guardsmen in their laced 
coats; and the savage Highland Amorites, 
that shed blood like water; and many a proud 
serving-man, haughty of heart and bloody of 
hand, cringing to the rich, and making them 
wickeder than they would be; grinding the 
poor to powder, when the rich had broken 
them to fragments. And mony, mony mair 
were coming and ganging, a' as busy in their 
vocation as if they had been alive. 

Sir Robert Redgauntlet, in the midst of a' 
this fearful riot, cried, wi' a voice like thunder, 
on Steenie Piper to come to the board-head 
where he was sitting; his legs stretched out 
before him, and swathed up with flannel, with 
his holster pistols aside him, while the great 
broadsword rested against his chair, just as 
my gudesire had seen him the last time upon 
earth — the very cushion for the jackanape 
was close to him, but the creature itsell was 
not there — it wasna its hour, it's likely; for 
he heard them say, as he came forward, "Is 
not the Major come yet?" And another 
answered, "The jackanape will be here be- 



WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE 



315 



times the morn." And when my gudesire 
came forward, Sir Robert, or his ghaist, or 
the deevil in his likeness, said, "Weel, piper, 
hae ye settled wi' my son for the year's rent?" 

With much ado my father gat breath to say, 
that Sir John would not settle without his 
honour's receipt. 

"Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, 
Steenie," said the appearance of Sir Robert — 
"Play us up, 'Weel hoddled, Luckie.' " 

Now this was a tune my gudesire learned 
frae a warlock, that heard it when they were 
worshipping Satan at their meetings; and my 
gudesire had sometimes played it at the ranting 
suppers in Redgauntlet Castle, but never very 
willingly; and now he grew cauld at the very 
name of it, and said, for excuse, he hadna his 
pipes wi' him. 

"MacCallum, ye limb of Beelzebub," said 
the fearfu' Sir Robert, "bring Steenie the pipes 
that I am keeping for him !" 

MacCallum brought a pairof pipes might have 
served the piper of Donald of the Isles. But 
he gave my gudesire a nudge as he offered them ; 
and looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw 
that the chanter was of steel, and heated to a 
white heat; so he had fair warning not to trust 
his fingers with it. So he excused himself 
again, and said, he was faint and frightened, 
and had not wind aneugh to fill the bag. 

"Then ye maun eat and drink, Steenie," 
said the figure; "for we do little else here; 
and it's ill speaking between a fou man and a 
fasting." 

Now these were the very words that the 
bloody Earl of Douglas said to keep the King's 
messenger in hand, while he cut the head off 
MacLellan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle, 
and that put Steenie mair and mair on his 
guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he 
came neither to eat, or drink, or make min- 
strelsy ; but simply for his ain — to ken what 
was come o' the money he had paid, and to get 
a discharge for it ; and he was so stout-hearted 
by this time, that he charged Sir Robert for 
conscience-sake — (he had no power to say the 
holy name) — and as he hoped for peace and 
rest, to spread no snares for him, but just to 
give him his ain. 

The appearance gnashed its teeth and 
laughed, but it took from a large pocket-book 
the receipt, and handed it to Steenie. "There 
is your receipt, ye pitiful cur; and for the 
money, my dog-whelp of a son may go look for 
it in the Cat's Cradle." 

My gudesire uttered mony thanks, and was 



about to retire, when Sir Robert roared aloud, 
"Stop, though, thou sack-doudling son of a 
whore ! I am not done with thee. Here we 
do nothing for nothing; and you must return 
on this very day twelvemonth, to pay your 
master the homage that you owe me for my 
protection." 

My father's tongue was loosed of a suddenty, 
and he said aloud, "I refer mysell to God's 
pleasure, and not to yours." 

He had no sooner uttered the word than all 
was dark around him ; and he sunk on the earth 
with such a sudden shock, that he lost both 
breath and sense. 

How lang Steenie lay there, he could not tell ; 
but when he came to himsell, he was lying in 
the auld kirkyard of Redgauntlet parochine, 
just at the door of the family aisle, and the 
scutcheon of the auld knight, Sir Robert, hang- 
ing over his head. There was a deep morning 
fog on grass and gravestane around him, and his 
horse was feeding quietly beside the minister's 
twa cows. Steenie would have thought the 
whole was a dream, but he had the receipt in 
his hand, fairly written and signed by the auld 
Laird; only the last letters of his name were a 
little disorderly, written like one seized with 
sudden pain. 

Sorely troubled in his mind, he left that 
dreary place, rode through the mist to Red- 
gauntlet Castle, and with much ado he got 
speech of the Laird. 

"Well, you dyvour bankrupt," was the first 
word, "have you brought me my rent?" 

"No," answered my gudesire, "I have not; 
but I have brought your honour Sir Robert's 
receipt for it." 

"How, sirrah? — Sir Robert's receipt! — 
You told me he had not given you one." 

"Will your honour please to see if that bit 
line is right?" 

Sir John looked at every line, and at every 
letter, with much attention; and at last, at the 
date, which my gudesire had not observed, 
— "From my appointed place" he read, "this 
twenty -fifth of November." — "What ! — That 
is yesterday! — Villain, thou must have gone to 
hell for this!" 

"I got it from your honour's father — whether 
he be in heaven or hell, I know not," said 
Steenie. 

"I will delate you for a warlock to the Privy 
Council!" said Sir John. "I will send you to 
your master, the devil, with the help of a tar- 
barrel and a torch ! " 

"I intend to delate mysell to the Presby- 



316 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 



tcrv," said Stecnie, "and tell them all I have 
seen last night, whilk are things fitter for them 
to judge of than a borrel man like me." 

Sir John paused, composed himsell and 
desired to hear the full history; and my 
gudesire told it him from point to point, as I 
have told it you — word for word, neither more 
nor less. 

Sir John was silent again for a long time, 
and at last he said, very composedly, "Steenie, 
this story of yours concerns the honour of many 
a noble family besides mine; and if it be a 
leasing-making, to keep yourself out of my 
danger, the least you can expect is to have a 
redhot iron driven through your tongue, and 
that will be as bad as scauding your fingers 
wi' a redhot chanter. But yet it may be true, 
Steenie; and if the money cast up, I shall not 
know what to think of it. — But where shall 
we find the Cat's Cradle? There are cats 
enough about the old house, but I think they 
kitten without the ceremony of bed or cradle." 

"We were best ask Hutcheon," said my 
gudesire; "he kens a' the odd corners about 
as weel as — another serving-man that is now 
gane, and that I wad not like to name." 

Aweel, Hutcheon, when he was asked, told 
them, that a ruinous turret, lang disused, next 
to the clock-house, only accessible by a ladder, 
for the opening was on the outside, and far 
above the battlements, was called of old the 
Cat's Cradle. 

"There will I go immediately," said Sir John ; 
and he took (with what purpose, Heaven kens) 
one of his father's pistols from the hall-table, 
where they had lain since the night he died, 
and hastened to the battlements. 

It was a dangerous place to climb, for the 
ladder was auld and frail, and wanted ane or 
twa rounds. However, up got Sir John, and 
entered at the turret-door, where his body 
stopped the only little light that was in the bit 
turret. Something flees at him wi' a vengeance, 
maist dang him back ower — bang gaed the 
knight's pistol, and Hutcheon, that held the 
ladder, and my gudesire that stood beside him, 
hears a loud skelloch. A minute after, Sir John 
flings the body of the jackanape down to them, 
and cries that the siller is fund, and that they 
should come up and help him. And there was 
the bag of siller sure aneugh, and mony orra 
things besides, that had been missing for mony 
a day. And Sir John, when he had riped the 
turret weel, led my gudesire into the dining- 
parlour, and took him by the hand, and spoke 
kindly to him, and said he was sorry he should 



have doubted his word, and that he would 
hereafter be a good master to him, to make 
amends. 

"And now, Steenie," said Sir John, "although 
this vision of yours tends, on the whole, to 
my father's credit, as an honest man, that he 
should, even after his death, desire to see 
justice done to a poor man like you, yet you are 
sensible that ill-dispositioned men might make 
bad constructions upon it, concerning his soul's 
health. So, I think, we had better lay the haill 
dirdum on that ill-deedie creature, Major 
Weir, and say naething about your dream 
in the wood of Pitmurkie. You had taken 
ower muckle brandy to be very certain about 
ony thing; and, Steenie, this receipt," (his 
hand shook while he held it out,) — "it's 
but a queer kind of document, and we will do 
best, I think, to put it quietly in the fire." 

"Od, but for as queer as it is, it's a' the 
voucher I have for my rent," said my gudesire, 
who was afraid, it may be, of losing the benefit 
of Sir Robert's discharge. 

"I will bear the contents to your credit in 
the rental-book, and give you a discharge under 
my own hand," said Sir John, "and that on the 
spot. And, Steenie, if you can hold your tongue 
about this matter, you shall sit, from this term 
downward, at an easier rent." 

"Mony thanks to your honour," said Steenie, 
who saw easily in what corner the wind was; 
"doubtless I will be conformable to all your hon- 
our's commands; only I would willingly speak 
wi' some powerful minister on the subject, 
for I do not like the sort of soumons of appoint- 
ment whilk your honour's father" — 

"Do not call the phantom my father!" said 
Sir John, interrupting him. 

"Weel, then, the thing that was so like him," 
said my gudesire; "he spoke of my coming 
back to him this time twelvemonth, and it's 
a weight on my conscience." 

"Aweel, then," said Sir John, "if you be so 
much distressed in mind, you may speak to 
our minister of the parish; he is a douce man, 
regards the honour of our family, and the mair 
that he may look for some patronage from me." 

Wi' that, my father readily agreed that the 
receipt should be burnt, and the Laird threw 
it into the chimney with his ain hand. Burn 
it would not for them, though; but away it 
flew up the lumb, wi' a lang train of sparks 
at its tail, and a hissing noise like a squib. 

My gudesire gaed down to the Manse, and 
the minister, when he had heard the story, said, 
it was his real opinion, that though my gudesire 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



317 



had gaen very far in tampering with dangerous 
matters, yet, as he had refused the devil's 
arles, (for such was the offer of meat and drink,) 
and had refused to do homage by piping at his 
bidding, he hoped, that if he held a circumspect 
walk hereafter, Satan could take little ad- 
vantage by what was come and gane. And, 
indeed, my gudesire, of his ain accord, lang 
foreswore baith the pipes and the brandy — 
it was not even till the year was out, and the 
fatal day past, that he would so much as take 
the fiddle, or drink usquebaugh or tippenny. 
Sir John made up his story about the jack- 
anape as he liked himsell; and some believe 
till this day there was no more in the matter 
than the filching nature of the brute. Indeed, 
ye'll no hinder some to threap, that it was nane 
o' the auld Enemy that Dougal and my gude- 
sire saw in the Laird's room, but only that 
wanchancy creature, the Major, capering on 
the coffin; and that, as to the blawing on the 
Laird's whistle that was heard after he was 
dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as the 
Laird himsell, if no better. But Heaven kens 
the truth, whilk first came out by the minister's 
wife, after Sir John and her ain gudeman were 
baith in the moulds. And then my gudesire, 
wha was failed in his limbs, but not in his 
judgment or memory — at least nothing to speak 
of — was obliged to tell the real narrative to his 
freends, for the credit of his good name. He 
might else have been charged for a warlock. 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
(1772-1834) 

BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA 

CHAP. XIV 

During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth 
and I were neighbours, our conversations turned 
frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, 
the power of exciting the sympathy of the 
reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of 
nature, and the power of giving the interest of 
novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. 
The sudden charm, which accidents of light and 
shade, which moonlight or sunset, diffused over 
a known and familiar landscape, appeared to 
represent the practicability of combining both. 
These are the poetry of nature. The thought 
suggested itself (to which of us I do not 
recollect) that a series of poems might be com- 
posed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents 
and agents were to be, in part at least, super- 



natural; and the excellence aimed at was to 
consist in the interesting of the affections by 
the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would 
naturally accompany such situations, suppos- 
ing them real. And real in this sense they 
have been to every human being who, from 
whatever source of delusion, has at any time 
believed himself under supernatural agency. 
For the second class, subjects were to be chosen 
from ordinary life; the characters and incidents 
were to be such as will be found in every village 
and its vicinity where there is a meditative 
and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice 
them when they present themselves. 

In this idea originated the plan of the "Lyri- 
cal Ballads"; in which it was agreed that my 
endeavours should be directed to persons and 
characters supernatural, or at least romantic; 
yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a 
human interest and a semblance of truth suffi- 
cient to procure for these shadows of imagina- 
tion that willing suspension of disbelief for the 
moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. 
Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose 
to himself as his object, to give the charm of 
novelty to things of every day, and to excite 
a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by 
awakening the mind's attention from the leth- 
argy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness 
and the wonders of the world before us; an 
inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in con- 
sequence of the film of familiarity and selfish 
solicitude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears that 
hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor under- 
stand. 

With this view I wrote the "Ancient Mariner," 
and was preparing, among other poems, the 
"Dark Ladie," and the "Christabel," in which 
I should have more nearly realised my ideal 
than I had done in my first attempt. But Mr. 
Wordsworth's industry had proved so much 
more successful, and the number of his poems 
so much greater, that my compositions, instead 
of forming a balance, appeared rather an 
interpolation of heterogeneous matter. Mr. 
Wordsworth added two or three poems written 
in his own character, in the impassioned, lofty, 
and sustained diction which is characteristic 
of his genius. In this form the "Lyrical 
Ballads" were published; and were presented 
by him, as an experiment, whether subjects, 
which from their nature rejected the usual 
ornaments and extra-colloquial style of poems 
in general, might not be so managed in the 
language of ordinary life as to produce the 
pleasurable interest which it is the peculiar 



3i3 



SAMl I I. TAYLOR COLF.RIIK'.K 



business of poetry to impart. To the second 
edition he added a preface of considerable 
length; in whieh, notwithstanding some pas- 
sages of apparently a contrary import, he was 

understood to contend for the extension o{ 
this style to poetry of all kinds, and to reject 
as vicious ami indefensible all phrases and 

forms of style that were not included in what he 
(unfortunately, 1 think, adopting an equivocal 
expression) called the language of real life. 
From this preface, prefixed to poems in which 
it was impossible to deny the presence of orig- 
inal genius, however mistaken its direction 
might be deemed, arose the whole long con- 
tinued controversy. For from the conjunction 
of perceived power with supposed heresy 1 ex- 
plain the inveteracy, and in some instances, 
I grieve to say, the acrimonious passions, with 
which the controversy has been conducted by 
the assailants. 

Had Mr. Wordsworth's poems been the silly, 
the childish things which they were for a long 
time described as being; had they been really 
distinguished from the Compositions of other 
poets merely by meanness of language and 
inanity of thought; had they indeed contained 
nothing more than what is found in the parodies 
and pretended imitations of them; they must 
have sunk at once, a dead weight, into the 
slough of oblivion, and have dragged the 
preface along with them. Hut year after year 
increased the number of Mr. Wordsworth's 
admirers. They were found, too, not in the 
lower classes of the reading public, but chiefly 
among young men of strong sensibility and 
meditative minds; and their admiration (in- 
flamed perhaps in some degree by opposition) 
was distinguished by its intensity, 1 might 
almost say, by its religious fervour. These 
facts, and the intellectual energy of the author, 
which was more or less consciously felt, where 
it was outwardly and even boisterously denied, 
meeting with sentiments of aversion to his 
opinions, and of alarm at their consequences, 
produced an eddy of criticism, which would of 
itself have borne up the poems by the violence 
with which it whirled them round and round. 
With many parts of this preface, in the sense 
attributed to them, and which the words un- 
doubtedly seem to authorise, I never con- 
curred; but, on the contrary, objected to them 
as erroneous in principle, and as contradictory 
(in appearance at least) both to other parts of 
the same preface and to the author's own 
practice in the greater number of the |Hiems 
themselves. Mr. Wordsworth, in his recent 



collection, has, I find, degraded this prefatory 
disquisition to the end of his second volume, 
to be read or not at the reader's choice. But 
he has not, as far as 1 can discover, announced 
any change in his poetic creed. At all events, 
considering it as the source of a controversy, 
in which 1 have been honoured more than I 
deserve by the frequent conjunction of my name 
with his, 1 think it expedient to declare, once for 
all, in what points 1 coincide with his opinions, 
and in what points 1 altogether differ. But 
in order to render myself intelligible, I must 
previously, in as few words as possible, explain 
my ideas, first, of a poem; and secondly, of 
poetry itself, in kind and in essence. 

The office of philosophical disquisition con- 
sists in just distinction; while it is the privilege 
of the philosopher to preserve himself con- 
stantly aware that distinction is not division. 
In order to obtain adequate notions of any 
truth, we must intellectually separate its dis- 
tinguishable parts; and this is the technical 
process of philosophy. But having so done, 
we must then restore them in our conceptions 
to the unity in which they actually coexist; 
and this is the result of philosophy. A poem 
contains the same elements as a prose com- 
position; the difference, therefore, must con- 
sist in a different combination of them, in 
consequence of a different object proposed. 
According to the difference of the object will be 
the difference of the combination. It is pos- 
sible that the object may be merely to facilitate 
the recollection of any given facts or observa- 
tions by artificial arrangement; and the com- 
position will be a poem, merely because it is 
distinguished from prose by metre, or by rhyme, 
or by both conjointly. In this, the lowest sense, 
a man might attribute the name of a poem to the 
well-known enumeration of the days in the 
several months: 

"Thirty days hath September, 
April, Juno, and November, " etc. 

and others of the same class and purpose. 
And as a particular pleasure is found in an- 
ticipating the recurrence of sound and quanti- 
ties, all compositions that have this charm su- 
peradded, whatever be their contents, may be 
entitled poems. 

So much for the superficial form. A differ- 
ence of object and contents supplies an addi- 
tional ground of distinction. 'The immediate 
purpose may be the communication of truths: 
either of truth absolute and demonstrable, as in 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA 



319 



works of science; or of facts experienced and 
recorded, as in history. Pleasure, and that 
of the highest and most permanent kind, may 
result from the attainment of the end; but it 
is not itself the immediate end. In other works 
the communication of pleasure may be the 
immediate purpose; and though truth, either 
moral or intellectual, ought to be the ultimate 
end, yet this will distinguish the character of the 
author, not the class to which the work belongs. 
Blest indeed is that state of society, in which the 
immediate purpose would be baffled by the 
perversion of the proper ultimate end; in which 
no charm of diction or imagery could exempt 
the Bathyllus even of an Anacreon, or the Alexis 
of Virgil, from disgust and aversion ! 

But the communication of pleasure may be 
the immediate object of a work not metrically 
composed; and that object may have been in a 
high degree attained, as in novels and romances. 
Would then the mere superaddition of metre, 
with or without rhyme, entitle these to the 
name of poems? The answer is, that nothing 
can permanently please, which does not contain 
in itself the reason why it is so, and not other- 
wise. If metre be superadded, all other parts 
must be made consonant with it. They must 
be such as to justify the perpetual and distinct 
attention to each part, which an exact cor- 
respondent recurrence of accent and sound are 
calculated to excite. The final definition then, 
so deduced, may be thus worded. A poem is 
that species of composition, which is opposed 
to works of science, by proposing for its im- 
mediate object pleasure, not truth; and from 
all other species (having this object in common 
with it) it is discriminated by proposing to 
itself such delight from the whole, as is com- 
patible with a distinct gratification from each 
component part. 

Controversy is not seldom excited in conse- 
quence of the disputants attaching each a dif- 
ferent meaning to the same word; and in few 
instances has this been more striking than in 
disputes concerning the present subject. If a 
man chooses to call every composition a poem, 
which is rhyme, or measure, or both, I must 
leave his opinion uncontroverted. The dis- 
tinction is at least competent to characterise 
the writer's intention. If it were subjoined, 
that the whole is likewise entertaining or 
affecting as a tale, or as a series of interesting 
reflections, I of course admit this as another fit 
ingredient of a poem, and an additional merit. 
But if the definition sought for be that of a 
legitimate poem, I answer, it must be one the 



parts of which mutually support and explain 
each other; all in their proportion harmo- 
nising with, and supporting the purpose and 
known influences of metrical arrangement. The 
philosophic critics of all ages coincide with the 
ultimate judgment of all countries, in equally 
denying the praises of a just poem, on the one 
hand to a series of striking lines or distichs, 
each of which absorbing the whole attention of 
the reader to itself, disjoins it from its context, 
and makes it a separate whole, instead of a 
harmonising part ; and on the other hand, to an 
unsustained composition, from which the reader 
collects rapidly the general result unattracted 
by the component parts. The reader should 
be carried forward, not merely or chiefly by the 
mechanical impulse of curiosity, or by a rest- 
less desire to arrive at the final solution ; but by 
the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the 
attractions of the journey itself. Like the mo- 
tion of a serpent, which the Egyptians made 
the emblem of intellectual power; or like the 
path of sound through the air, at every step he 
pauses and half recedes, and from the retro- 
gressive movement collects the force which again 
carries him onward, Praecipitandus est liber 
spirilus, 1 says Petronius Arbiter most happily. 
The epithet, liber, here balances the preceding 
verb : and it is not easy to conceive more mean- 
ing condensed in fewer words. 

But if this should be admitted as a satisfac- 
tory character of a poem, we have still to seek 
for a definition of poetry. The writings of 
Plato, and Bishop Taylor, and the Theoria 
Sacra of Burnet, furnish undeniable proofs 
that poetry of the highest kind may exist with- 
out metre, and even without the contra-dis- 
tinguishing objects of a poem. The first 
chapter of Isaiah (indeed a very large proportion 
of the whole book) is poetry in the most em- 
phatic sense ; yet it would be not less irrational 
than strange to assert, that pleasure, and not 
truth, was the immediate object of the prophet. 
In short, whatever specific import we attach 
to the word poetry, there will be found involved 
in it, as a necessary consequence, that a poem 
of any length neither can be, nor ought to be, 
all poetry. Yet if a harmonious whole is to 
be produced, the remaining parts must be pre- 
served in keeping with the poetry; and this 
can be no otherwise effected than by such a 
studied selection and artificial arrangement 
as will partake of one, though not a peculiar, 
property of poetry. And this again can be no 

1 The free spirit must be urged headlong. 



320 



FRANCIS JEFFREY 



other than the property of exciting a more 
continuous and equal attention than the lan- 
guage of prose aims at, whether colloquial or 
written. 

My own conclusions on the nature of poetry, 
in the strictest use of the word, have been in 
part anticipated in the preceding disquisition 
on the fancy and imagination. What is poetry ? 
is so nearly the same question with, what is a 
poet? that the answer to the one is involved 
in the solution of the other. For it is a dis- 
tinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, 
which sustains and modifies the images,thoughts, 
and emotions of the poet's own mind. The 
poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the 
whole soul of man into activity, with the sub- 
ordination of its faculties to each other, accord- 
ing to their relative worth and dignity. He 
diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, 
and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that 
synthetic and magical power, to which we have 
exclusively appropriated the name of imagina- 
tion. This power, first put in action by the 
will and understanding, and retained under their 
irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, con- 
trol {laxis effertur habcnis x ) reveals itself in the 
balance or reconciliation of opposite or discor- 
dant qualities : of sameness, with difference; 
of the general, with the concrete; the idea, 
with the image ; the individual, with the repre- 
sentative; the sense of novelty and fresh- 
ness, with old and familiar objects; a more than 
usual state of emotion, with more than 
usual order; judgment ever awake and steady 
self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling pro- 
found or vehement; and while it blends and 
harmonises the natural and the artificial, 
still subordinates art to nature; the manner to 
the matter; and our admiration of the poet to 
our sympathy with the poetry. "Doubtless," 
as Sir John Davies observes of the soul (and 
his words may with slight alteration be applied, 
and even more appropriately, to the poetic 
imagination), — 

" Doubtless this could not be, but that she turns 
Bodies to spirit by sublimation strange, 
As fire converts to fire, the things it burns, 
As we our food into our nature change. 

From their gross matter she abstracts their forms, 
And draws a kind of quintessence from things; 
Which to her proper nature she transforms 
To bear them light on her celestial wings. 

1 He is borne with loosened reins. 



Thus does she, when from individual states 
She doth abstract the universal kinds; 
Which then re-clothed in divers names and fates 
Steal access through our senses to our minds." 

Finally, good sense is the body of poetic 
genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and 
imagination the soul that is everywhere, and in 
each; and forms all into one graceful and 
intelligent whole. 

FRANCIS JEFFREY (i 773-1850) 
THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE 

This, we think, has the merit of being the 
very worst poem we ever saw imprinted in a 
quarto volume; and though it was scarcely 
to be expected, we confess, that Mr. Words- 
worth, with all his ambition, should so soon 
have attained to that distinction, the wonder 
may perhaps be diminished when we state, 
that it seems to us to consist of a happy union 
of all the faults, without any of the beauties, 
which belong to his school of poetry. It is 
just such a work, in short, as some wicked 
enemy of that school might be supposed to have 
devised, on purpose to make it ridiculous; and 
when we first took it up, we could not help 
suspecting that some ill-natured critic had 
actually taken this harsh method of instructing 
Mr. Wordsworth, by example, in the nature of 
those errors, against which our precepts had 
been so often directed in vain. We had not 
gone far, however, till we felt intimately that 
nothing in the nature of a joke could be so in- 
supportably dull ; — and that this must be the 
work of one who earnestly believed it to be a 
pattern of pathetic simplicity, and gave it out 
as such to the admiration of all intelligent 
readers. In this point of view, the work may 
be regarded as curious at least, if not in some 
degree interesting; and, at all events, it must be 
instructive to be made aware of the excesses 
into which superior understandings may be 
betrayed, by long self-indulgence, and the 
strange extravagances into which they may 
run, when under the influence of that intoxica- 
tion which is produced by unrestrained admira- 
tion of themselves. This poetical intoxication, 
indeed, to pursue the figure a little farther, 
seems capable of assuming as many forms as 
the vulgar one which arises from wine ; and it 
appears to require as delicate a management 
to make a man a good poet by the help of the 
one, as to make him a good companion by 
means of the other. In both cases a little 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 



321 



mistake as to the dose or the quality of the 
inspiring fluid may make him absolutely out- 
rageous, or lull him over into the most pro- 
found stupidity, instead of brightening up the 
hidden stores of his genius: and truly we are 
concerned to say, that Mr. Wordsworth seems 
hitherto to have been unlucky in the choice 
of his liquor — or of his bottle-holder. In 
some of his odes and ethic exhortations, he 
was exposed to the public in a state of inco- 
herent rapture and glorious delirium, to which 
we think we have seen a parallel among the 
humbler lovers of jollity. In the Lyrical Bal- 
lads, he was exhibited, on the whole, in a vein 
of very pretty deliration; but in the poem 
before us, he appears in a state of low and 
maudlin imbecility, which would not have 
misbecome Master Silence himself, in the close 
of a social day. Whether this unhappy result 
is to be ascribed to any adulteration of his 
Castalian cups, or to the unlucky choice of his 
company over them, we cannot presume to say. 
It may be that he has dashed his Hippocrene 
with too large an infusion of lake water, or 
assisted its operation too exclusively by the 
study of the ancient historical ballads of "the 
north countrie." That there are palpable 
imitations of the style and manner of those 
venerable compositions in the work before 
us, is indeed undeniable; but it unfortunately 
happens, that while the hobbling versification, 
the mean diction, and flat stupidity of these 
models are very exactly copied, and even 
improved upon, in this imitation, their rude 
energy, manly simplicity, and occasional felicity 
of expression, have totally disappeared; and, 
instead of them, a large allowance of the au- 
thor's own metaphysical sensibility, and mys- 
tical wordiness, is forced into an unnatural 
combination with the borrowed beauties which 
have just been mentioned. 

ROBERT SOUTHEY (1 774-1843) 

THE LIFE OF NELSON 

From CHAPTER V 

The Battle of the Nile 

On the 25th of July he sailed from Syracuse 
for the Morea. Anxious beyond measure, and 
irritated that the enemy should so long have 
eluded him, the tediousness of the nights made 
him impatient ; and the officer of the watch was 
repeatedly called on to let him know the hour, 
and convince him, who measured time by his 



own eagerness, that it was not yet daybreak. 
The squadron made the Gulf of Coron on the 
28th. Troubridge entered the port, and re- 
turned with intelligence that the French had 
been seen about four weeks before steering to 
the S.E. from Candia. Nelson then deter- 
mined immediately to return to Alexandria, 
and the British fleet accordingly, with every 
sail set, stood once more for the coast of Egypt. 
On the 1st of August, about ten in the morning, 
they came in sight of Alexandria; the port 
had been vacant and solitary when they saw it 
last; it was now crowded with ships, and they 
perceived with exultation that the tri-colour 
flag was flying upon the walls. At four in the 
afternoon, Captain Hood, in the Zealous, 
made the signal for the enemy's fleet. For 
many preceding days Nelson had hardly taken 
either sleep or food : he now ordered his dinner 
to be served, while preparations were making 
for battle; and when his officers rose from the 
table, and went to their separate stations, he said 
to them: "Before this time to-morrow, I shall 
have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey." 

The French, steering direct for Candia, 
had made an angular passage for Alexandria; 
whereas Nelson, in pursuit of them, made 
straight for that place, and thus materially 
shortened the distance. The comparative 
smallness of his force made it necessary to sail 
in close order, and it covered a less space than 
it would have done if the frigates had been with 
him: the weather also was constantly hazy. 
These circumstances prevented the English 
from discovering the enemy on the way to 
Egypt, though it appeared, upon examining 
the journals of the French officers taken in the 
action, that the two fleets must actually have 
crossed on the night of the 22d of June. During 
the return to Syracuse, the chances of falling 
in with them were fewer. 

Why Buonaparte, having effected his land- 
ing, should not have suffered the fleet to return, 
has never yet been explained. This much is 
certain, that it was detained by his command; 
though, with his accustomed falsehood, he 
accused Admiral Brueys, after that officer's 
death, of having lingered on the coast, con- 
trary to orders. The French fleet arrived at 
Alexandria on the 1st of July; and Brueys, 
not being able to enter the port, which time and 
neglect had ruined, moored his ships in Aboukir 
Bay, in a strong and compact line of battle; 
the headmost vessel, according to his own 
account, being as close as possible to a shoal 
on the N.W., and the rest of the fleet forming 



322 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 



a kind of curve along the line of deep water, 
so as not to be turned by any means in the S.W. 
By Buonaparte's desire, he had offered a 
reward of 10,000 livres to any pilot of the 
country who would carry the squadron in ; but 
none could be found who would venture to 
take charge of a single vessel drawing more 
than twenty feet. He had, therefore, made 
the best of his situation, and chosen the strong- 
est position which he could possibly take in an 
open road. The commissary of the fleet said, 
they were moored in such a manner as to bid 
defiance to a force more than double their own. 
This presumption could not then be thought 
unreasonable. Admiral Barrington, when 
moored in a similar manner off St. Lucia, in 
the year 1778, beat off the Comte d'Estaing 
in three several attacks, though his force was 
inferior by almost one-third to that which as- 
sailed it. Here, the advantage of numbers, 
both in ships, guns, and men, was in favour 
of the French. They had thirteen ships of 
the line and four frigates, carrying 1,196 guns, 
and 11,230 men. The English had the same 
number of ships of the line, and one fifty-gun 
ship, carrying 1,012 guns, and 8,068 men. The 
English ships were all seventy-four; the 
French had three eighty-gun ships, and one 
three-decker of 120. 

During the whole pursuit, it had been 
Nelson's practice, whenever circumstances 
would permit, to have his captains on board the 
Vanguard, and explain to them his own ideas of 
the different and best modes of attack, and such 
plans as he proposed to execute, on falling in 
with the enemy, whatever their situation might 
be. There is no possible position, it is said, 
which he did not take into calculation. His 
officers were thus fully acquainted with his 
principles of tactics: and such was his confi- 
dence in their abilities, that the only thing 
determined upon, in case they should find the 
French at anchor, was for the ships to form 
as most convenient for their mutual support, 
and to anchor by the stern. "First gain the 
victory," he said, "and then make the best use 
of it you can." The moment he perceived the 
position of the French, that intuitive genius 
with which Nelson was endowed displayed 
itself; and it instantly struck him, that where 
there was room for an enemy's ship to swing, 
there was room for one of ours to anchor. 
The plan which he intended to pursue, there- 
fore, was to keep entirely on the outer side of 
the French line, and station his ships, as far as 
he was able, one on the outer bow, and another 



on the outer quarter, of each of the enemy's. 
This plan of doubling on the enemy's ships 
was projected by Lord Hood, when he designed 
to attack the French fleet at their anchor- 
age in Gourjean Road. Lord Hood found 
it impossible to make the attempt; but the 
thought was not lost upon Nelson, who acknow- 
ledged himself, on this occasion, indebted for 
it to his old and excellent commander. Cap- 
tain Berry, when he comprehended the scope 
of the design, exclaimed with transport, "If 
we succeed, what will the world say!" — 
"There is no if in the case," replied the Ad- 
miral: "that we shall succeed, is certain: who 
may live to tell the story, is a very different 
question." 

As the squadron advanced, they were assailed 
by a shower of shot and shells from the batteries 
on the island, and the enemy opened a steady 
fire from the starboard side of their whole line, 
within half gun-shot distance, full into the bows 
of our van ships. It was received in silence: 
the men on board every ship were employed 
aloft in furling sails, and below in tending the 
braces, and making ready for anchoring. A 
miserable sight for the French; who, with all 
their skill, and all their courage, and all their 
advantages of numbers and situation, were upon 
that element on which, when the hour of trial 
comes, a Frenchman has no hope. Admiral 
Brueys was a brave and able man ; yet the in- 
delible character of his country broke out in 
one of his letters, wherein he delivered it as his 
private opinion, that the English had missed 
him, because, not being superior in force, they 
did not think it prudent to try their strength 
with him. — ■ The moment was now come in 
which he was to be undeceived. 

A French brig was instructed to decoy the 
English, by manoeuvring so as to tempt them 
toward a shoal lying off the island of Bekier; 
but Nelson either knew the danger, or sus- 
pected some deceit; and the lure was unsuc- 
cessful. Captain Foley led the way in the 
Goliath, outsailing the Zealous, which for some 
minutes disputed this post of honour with him. 
He had long conceived that if the enemy were 
moored in line of battle in with the land, the 
best plan of attack would be to lead between 
them and the shore, because the French guns 
on that side were not likely to be manned, nor 
even ready for action. Intending, therefore, 
to fix himself on the inner bow of the Guerrier, 
he kept as near the edge of the bank as the 
depth of water would admit; but his anchor 
hung, and having opened his fire, he drifted 



THE LIFE OF NELSON 



3 2 3 



to the second ship, the Conqueranl, before it 
was clear; then anchored by the stern, inside 
of her, and in ten minutes shot away her mast. 
Hood, in the Zealous, perceiving this, took the 
station which the Goliath intended to have 
occupied, and totally disabled the Guerrier 
in twelve minutes. The third ship which 
doubled the enemy's van was the Orion, Sir J. 
Saumarez; she passed to windward of the 
Zealous, and opened her larboard guns as long 
as they bore on the Guerrier; then passing 
inside the Goliath, sunk a frigate which annoyed 
her, hauled round toward the French line, and 
anchoring inside, between the fifth and sixth 
ships from the Guerrier, took her station on the 
larboard bow of the Franklin, and the quarter 
of the Peuple Souverain, receiving and returning 
the fire of both. The sun was now nearly 
down. The Audacious, Captain Gould, pour- 
ing a heavy fire into the Guerrier and the Con- 
querant, fixed herself on the larboard bow of 
the latter; and when that ship struck, passed 
on to the Peuple Souverain. The Theseus, 
Captain Miller, followed, brought down the 
Guerrier 's remaining main and mizzen masts, 
then anchored inside of the Spartiatc, the third 
in the French line. 

While these advanced ships doubled the 
French line, the Vanguard was the first that 
anchored on the outer side of the enemy, within 
half pistol shot of their third ship, the Sparliate. 
Nelson had six colours flying in different parts 
of his rigging, lest they should be shot away ; — 
that they should be struck, no British Admiral 
considers as a possibility. He veered half a 
cable, and instantly opened a tremendous fire; 
under cover of which the other four ships of 
his division, the Minotaur, Bellerophon, De- 
fence, and Majestic, sailed on ahead of the 
Admiral. In a few minutes, every man sta- 
tioned at the first six guns in the fore part of 
the Vanguard's deck was killed or wounded — 
these guns were three times cleared. Captain 
Louis, in the Minotaur, anchored next ahead, 
and took off the fire of the Aquilon, the fourth 
in the enemy's line. The Bellerophon, Captain 
Darby, passed ahead and dropped her stern 
anchor on the starboard bow of the Orient, 
seventh in the line, Brueys' own ship, of one 
hundred and twenty guns, whose difference of 
force was in proportion of more than seven to 
three, and whose weight of ball, from the lower 
deck alone, exceeded that from the whole 
broadside of the Bellerophon. Captain Peyton, 
in the Defence, took his station ahead of the 
Minotaur, and engaged the Franklin, the sixth 



in the line; by which judicious movement 
the British line remained unbroken. The 
Majestic, Captain Westcott, got entangled with 
the main rigging of one of the French ships 
astern of the Orient, and suffered dreadfully 
from that three-decker's fire: but she swung 
clear, and closely engaging the Heureux, the 
ninth ship on the starboard bow, received also 
the fire of the Tonnant, which was the eighth 
in the line. The other four ships of the British 
squadron, having been detached previous to the 
discovery of the French, were at a considerable 
distance when the action began. It commenced 
at half after six; about seven, night closed, 
and there was no other light than that of the 
fire of the contending fleets. 

Troubridge, in the Cullodcn, then foremost 
of the remaining ships, was two leagues astern. 
He came on sounding, as the others had done: 
as he advanced, the increasing darkness in- 
creased the difficulty of the navigation; and 
suddenly, after having found eleven fathoms 
water, before the lead could be hove again, 
he was fast aground: nor could all his own 
exertions, joined to those of the Leander and 
the Mutine brig, which came to his assistance, 
get him off in time to bear a part in the action. 
His ship, however, served as a beacon to the 
Alexander and Swiftsure, which would else, 
from the course which they were holding, have 
gone considerably farther on the reef, and must 
inevitably have been lost. These ships entered 
the bay, and took their stations, in the darkness, 
in a manner long spoken of with admiration 
by all who remembered it. Captain Hallowell, 
in the Swiftsure, as he was bearing down, fell 
in with what seemed to be a strange sail: 
Nelson had directed his ships to hoist four 
lights horizontally at the mizzen -peak, as soon 
as it became dark ; and this vessel had no such 
distinction. Hallowell, however, with great 
judgment, ordered his men not to fire: if she 
was an enemy, he said, she was in too disabled 
a state to escape; but, from her sails being 
loose, and the way in which her head was, it 
was probable she might be an English ship. 
It was the Bellerophon, overpowered by the 
huge Orient: her lights had gone overboard, 
nearly 200 of her crew were killed or 
wounded, all her masts and cables had been 
shot away ; and she was drifting out of the line, 
toward the lee side of the bay. Her station, 
at this important time, was occupied by the 
Swiftsure, which opened a steady fire on the 
quarter of the Franklin, and the bows of the 
French Admiral. At the same instant, Cap- 



3 2 4 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 



tain Ball, with the Alexander, passed under his 
stern, and anchored within side on his larboard 
quarter, raking him, and keeping up a severe 
fire of musketry upon his decks. The last 
ship which arrived to complete the destruc- 
tion of the enemy was the Leandcr. Captain 
Thompson, finding that nothing could be done 
that night to get off the Culloden, advanced 
with the intention of anchoring athwart-hawse 
of the Orient. The Franklin was so near her 
ahead, that there was not room for him to pass 
clear of the two; he, therefore, took his station 
athwart-hawse of the latter, in such a position 
as to rake both. 

The two first ships of the French line had 
been dismasted within a quarter of an hour 
after the commencement of the action; and the 
others had in that time suffered so severely, 
that victory was already certain. The third, 
fourth, and fifth were taken possession of at 
half-past eight. 

Meantime Nelson received a severe wound 
on the head from a piece of landridge shot. 
Captain Berry caught him in his arms as he 
was falling. The great effusion of blood 
occasioned an apprehension that the wound 
was mortal: Nelson himself thought so: a 
large flap of the skin of the forehead, cut from 
the bone, had fallen over one eye: and the 
other being blind, he was in total darkness. 
When he was carried down, the surgeon, — 
in the midst of a scene scarcely to be conceived 
by those who have never seen a cockpit in time 
of action, and the heroism which is displayed 
amid its horrors, — with a natural and pardon- 
able eagerness, quitted the poor fellow then 
under his hands, that he might instantly attend 
the Admiral. "No!" said Nelson, "I will take 
my turn with my brave fellows." Nor would 
he suffer his own wound to be examined till 
every man who had been previously wounded 
was properly attended to. Fully believing that 
the wound was mortal, and that he was about 
to die, as he had ever desired, in battle and in 
victory, he called the chaplain, and desired 
him to deliver what he supposed to be his dy- 
ing remembrance to Lady Nelson: he then sent 
for Captain Louis on board from the Minotaur, 
that he might thank him personally for the great 
assistance which he had rendered to the Van- 
guard ; and, ever mindful of those who deserved 
to be his friends, appointed Captain Hardy 
from the brig to the command of his own ship, 
Captain Berry having to go home with the news 
of the victory. When the surgeon came in due 
time to examine his wound (for it was in vain 



to entreat him to let it be examined sooner), 
the most anxious silence prevailed; and the 
joy of the wounded men, and of the whole 
crew, when they heard that the hurt was merely 
superficial, gave Nelson deeper pleasure, than 
the unexpected assurance that his life was in 
no danger. The surgeon requested, and as far 
as he could, ordered him to remain quiet: but 
Nelson could not rest. He called for his secre- 
tary, Mr. Campbell, to write the despatches. 
Campbell had himself been wounded; and 
was so affected at the blind and suffering 
state of the Admiral, that he was unable to 
write. The chaplain was then sent for; but, 
before he came, Nelson, with his characteristic 
eagerness, took the pen, and contrived to trace 
a few words, marking his devout sense of the 
success which had already been obtained. He 
was now left alone; when suddenly a cry was 
heard on the deck, that the Orient was on fire. 
In the confusion, he found his way up, unas- 
sisted and unnoticed, and, to the astonishment 
of every one, appeared on the quarter-deck, 
where he immediately gave orders that boats 
should be sent to the relief of the enemy. 

It was soon after nine that the fire on board 
the Orient broke out. Brueys was dead: he 
had received three wounds, yet would not leave 
his post: a fourth cut him almost in two. 
He desired not to be carried below, but to 
be left to die upon deck. The flames soon 
mastered his ship. Her sides had just been 
painted; and the oil-jars and paint-buckets 
were lying on the poop. By the prodigious 
light of this conflagration, the situation of the 
two QeetS could now be perceived, the colours 
of both being clearly distinguishable. About 
ten o'clock the ship blew up, with a shock 
which was felt to the very bottom of every 
vessel. 

Many of her officers and men jumped over- 
board, some clinging to the spars and pieces 
of wreck, with which the sea was strewn, 
others swimming to escape from the destruction 
which they momentarily dreaded. Some were 
picked up by our boats; and some, even in the 
heat and fury of the action, were dragged into 
the lower ports of the nearest British vessel 
by the British sailors. The greater part of her 
crew, however, stood the danger till the last, 
and continued to fire from the lower deck. 
This tremendous explosion was followed by 
a silence not less awful: the firing immediately 
ceased on both sides; and the first sound which 
broke the silence was the dash of her shattered 
masts and yards, falling into the water from 



THE LIFE OF NELSON 



3 2 5 



the vast height to which they had been exploded. 
It is upon record, that a battle between two 
armies was once broken off by an earthquake: 
such an event would be felt like a miracle; but 
no incident in war, produced by human means, 
has ever equalled the sublimity of this co-in- 
stantaneous pause, and all its circumstances. 

About seventy of the Orient's crew were 
saved by the English boats. Among the many 
hundreds who perished were the Commodore, 
Casa-Bianca, and his son, a brave boy, only ten 
years old. They were seen floating on a shat- 
tered mast when the ship blew up. She had 
money on board (the plunder of Malta) to the 
amount of 600,000/. sterling. The masses of 
burning wreck, which were scattered by the 
explosion, excited for some moments appre- 
hensions in the English which they had never 
felt from any other danger. Two large pieces 
fell into the main and fore tops of the Swift- 
sure, without injuring any person. A port-fire 
also fell into the main-royal of the Alexander: 
the fire which it occasioned was speedily ex- 
tinguished. Captain Ball had provided, as far 
as human foresight could provide, against any 
such danger. All the shrouds and sails of his 
ship, not absolutely necessary for its immediate 
management, were thoroughly wetted, and so 
rolled up, that they were as hard and as little 
inflammable as so many solid cylinders. 

The firing recommenced with the ships to 
leeward of the centre, and continued till about 
three. At daybreak, the Guillaume Tell, and 
the Genercux, the two rear ships of the enemy, 
were the only French ships of the line which 
had their colours flying; they cut their cables 
in the forenoon, not having been engaged, and 
stood out to sea, and two frigates with them. 
The Zealous pursued; but as there was no 
other ship in a condition to support Captain 
Hood, he was recalled. It was generally 
believed by the officers, that if Nelson had not 
been wounded, not one of these ships could 
have escaped: the four certainly could not, if 
the Culloden had got into action; and if the 
frigates belonging to the squadron had been 
present, not one of the enemy's fleet would have 
left Aboukir Bay. These four vessels, however, 
were all that escaped ; and the victory was the 
most complete and glorious in the annals of 
naval history. "Victory," said Nelson, "is 
not a name strong enough for such a scene"; 
he called it a conquest. Of thirteen sail of the 
line, nine were taken, and two burnt: of the 
four frigates, one was sunk, another, the Arte- 
mise, was burnt in a villainous manner by her 



captain, M. Estandlet, who, having fired a 
broadside at the Theseus, struck his colours, 
then set fire to the ship, and escaped with most 
of his crew to shore. The British loss, in killed 
and wounded, amounted to 895. Westcott 
was the only captain who fell: 3,105 of the 
French, including the wounded, were sent on 
shore by cartel, and 5,225 perished. 

As soon as the conquest was completed, 
Nelson sent orders through the fleet, to return 
thanksgiving in every ship for the victory with 
which Almighty God had blessed his Majesty's 
arms. The French at Rosetta, who with mis- 
erable fear beheld the engagement, were at a 
loss to understand the stillness of the fleet 
during the performance of this solemn duty; 
but it seemed to affect many of the prisoners, 
officers as well as men : and graceless and god- 
less as the officers were, some of them re- 
marked, that it was no wonder such order was 
preserved in the British navy, when the minds 
of our men could be impressed with such senti- 
ments after so great a victory, and at a moment 
of such confusion. — The French at Rosetta, 
seeing their four ships sail out of the bay 
unmolested, endeavoured to persuade them- 
selves that they were in possession of the place 
of battle. But it was in vain thus to attempt, 
against their own secret and certain conviction, 
to deceive themselves: and even if they could 
have succeeded in this, the bonfires which the 
Arabs kindled along the whole coast, and over 
the country, for the three following nights, 
would soon have undeceived them. Thousands 
of Arabs and Egyptians lined the shore, and 
covered the housetops during the action, re- 
joicing in the destruction which had overtaken 
their invaders. Long after the battle, innu- 
merable bodies were seen floating about the bay, 
in spite of all the exertions which were made to 
sink them, as well from fear of pestilence, as 
from the loathing and horror which the sight 
occasioned. Great numbers were cast up upon 
the Island of Bekier (Nelson's Island, it has 
since been called), and our sailors raised mounds 
of sand over them. Even after an interval of 
nearly three years Dr. Clarke saw them, and 
assisted in interring heaps of human bodies, 
which, having been thrown up by the sea, 
where there were no jackals to devour them, 
presented a sight loathsome to humanity. The 
shore, for an extent of four leagues, was cov- 
ered with wreck; and the Arabs found employ- 
ment for many days in burning on the beach 
the fragments which were cast up, for the sake 
of the iron. Part of the Orient's main -mast 



326 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 



was picked up by the Swiftsitre. Captain 
Hallowell ordered his carpenter to make a 
coffin of it ; the iron as well as wood was taken 
from the wreck of the same ship; it was fin- 
ished as well and handsomely as the workman's 
skill and materials would permit; and Hal- 
lowell then sent it to the Admiral with the fol- 
lowing letter, — "Sir, I have taken the liberty 
of presenting you a coffin made from the main- 
mast of U Orient, that when you have finished 
your military career in this world, you may 
be buried in one of your trophies. But that 
that period may be far distant, is the earnest 
wish of your sincere friend, Benjamin Hal- 
lowell." An offering so strange, and yet so 
suited to the occasion, was received by Nelson 
in the spirit with which it was sent. As he 
felt it good for him, now that he was at the 
summit of his wishes, to have death before his 
eyes, he ordered the coffin to be placed upright 
in his cabin. Such a piece of furniture, how- 
ever, was more suitable to his own feelings than 
to those of his guests and attendants; and an 
old favourite servant entreated him so earnestly 
to let it be removed, that at length he consented 
to have the coffin carried below: but he gave 
strict orders that it should be safely stowed, 
and reserved for the purpose for which its brave 
and worthy donor had designed it. 

The victory was complete ; but Nelson could 
not pursue it as he would have done, for want 
of means. Had he been provided with small 
craft, nothing could have prevented the de- 
struction of the store-ships and transports in the 
port of Alexandria : — four bomb-vessels would 
at that time have burnt the whole in a few hours. 
"Were I to die this moment," said he in his 
despatches to the Admiralty, "want of frigates 
would be found stamped on my heart ! No 
words of mine can express what I have suffered, 
and am suffering, for want of them." He had 
also to bear up against great bodily suffering; 
the blow had so shaken his head, that from its 
constant and violent aching, and the perpetual 
sickness which accompanied the pain, he could 
scarcely persuade himself that the skull was not 
fractured. Had it not been for Troubridge, 
Ball, Hood, and Hallowell, he declared that he 
should have sunk under the fatigue of refitting 
the squadron. "All," he said, "had done well; 
but these officers were his supporters." But, 
amidst his sufferings and exertions, Nelson could 
yet think of all the consequences of his victory; 
and that no advantage from it might be lost, he 
despatched an officer overland to India, with 
letters to the Governor of Bombay, informing 



him of the arrival of the French in Egypt, the 
total destruction of their fleet, and the conse- 
quent preservation of India from any attempt 
against it on the part of this formidable arma- 
ment. "He knew that Bombay," he said, "was 
their first object, if they could get there ; but he 
trusted that Almighty God would overthrow in 
Egypt these pests of the human race. Buona- 
parte had never yet had to contend with an 
English officer, and he would endeavour to 
make him respect us." This despatch he sent 
upon his own responsibility, with letters of 
credit upon the East India Company, ad- 
dressed to the British consuls, vice-consuls, 
and merchants on his route; Nelson saying, 
"that if he had done wrong, he hoped the bills 
would be paid, and he would repay the Com- 
pany: for, as an Englishman, he should be 
proud that it had been in his power to put our 
settlements on their guard." The information 
which by this means reached India was of great 
importance. Orders had just been received 
for defensive preparations, upon a scale pro- 
portionate to the apprehended danger; and 
the extraordinary expenses which would other- 
wise have been incurred were thus prevented. 
Nelson was now at the summit of glory: 
congratulations, rewards, and honours were 
showered upon him by all the states, and 
princes, and powers to whom his victory gave 
a respite. The first communication of this 
nature which he received was from the Turkish 
Sultan : who, as soon as the invasion of Egypt 
was known, had called upon "all true believers 
to take arms against those swinish infidels the 
French, that they might deliver these blessed 
habitations from their accursed hands"; and 
who had ordered his "Pashas to turn night into 
day in their efforts to take vengeance." The 
present of "his Imperial Majesty, the power- 
ful, formidable, and most magnificent Grand 
Seignior," was a pelisse of sables, with broad 
sleeves, valued at five thousand dollars; and a 
diamond aigrette, valued at eighteen thousand 
— the most honourable badge among the 
Turks; and in this instance more especially 
honourable, because it was taken from one of 
the royal turbans. " If it were worth a million," 
said Nelson to his wife, "my pleasure would 
be to see it in your possession." The Sultan 
also sent, in a spirit worthy of imitation, a purse 
of two thousand sequins, to be distributed 
among the wounded. The mother of the 
Sultan sent him a box, set with diamonds, 
valued at one thousand pounds. The Czar 
Paul, in whom the better part of his strangely 



THE LIFE OF NELSON 



327 



compounded nature at this time predominated, 
presented him with his portrait, set in dia- 
monds, in a gold box, accompanied with a letter 
of congratulation, written by his own hand. 
The King of Sardinia also wrote to him, and 
sent a gold box, set with diamonds. Honours 
in profusion were awaiting him at Naples. In 
his own country the king granted these honour- 
able augmentations to his armorial ensign: a 
chief undulated, argent; thereon waves of the 
sea ; from which a palm-tree issuant, between 
a disabled ship on the dexter, and a ruinous 
battery on the sinister, all proper ; and for his 
crest, on a naval crown, or, the chelengk, or 
plume, presented to him by the Turk, with the 
motto, Palmam qui meruit feral. And to his 
supporters, being a sailor on the dexter, and a 
lion on the sinister, were given these honourable 
augmentations: a palm-branch, in the sailor's 
hand, and another in the paw of the lion, both 
proper ; with a tri-coloured flag and staff in the 
lion's mouth. He was created Baron Nelson 
of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe, with a 
pension of 2,000/. for his own life, and those 
of his two immediate successors. When the 
grant was moved in the House of Commons, 
General Walpole expressed an opinion, that a 
higher degree of rank ought to be conferred. 
Mr. Pitt made answer, that he thought it 
needless to enter into that question. "Admiral 
Nelson's fame," he said, "would be co-equal 
with the British name: and it would be re- 
membered that he had obtained the greatest 
naval victory on record, when no man would 
think of asking whether he had been created a 
baron, a viscount, or an earl !" It was strange 
that, in the very act of conferring a title, the 
minister should have excused himself for not 
having conferred a higher one, by representing 
all titles, on such an occasion, as nugatory and 
superfluous. True, indeed, whatever title 
had been bestowed, whether viscount, earl, 
marquis, duke, or prince, if our laws had so 
permitted, he who received it would have been 
Nelson still. That name he had ennobled 
beyond all addition of nobility: it was the name 
by which England loved him, France feared 
him, Italy, Egypt, and Turkey celebrated him; 
and by which he will continue to be known 
while the present kingdoms and languages of 
the world endure, and as long as their history 
after them shall be held in remembrance. It 
depended upon the degree of rank what should 
be the fashion of his coronet, in what page of 
the red book his name was to be inserted, and 
what precedency should be allowed his lady 



in the drawing-room and at the ball. That 
Nelson's honours were affected thus far, and 
no farther, might be conceded to Mr. Pitt and 
his colleagues in administration : but the degree 
of rank which they thought proper to allot was 
the measure of their gratitude, though not of 
his services. This Nelson felt; and this he 
expressed, with indignation, among his friends. 
Whatever may have been the motives of the 
ministry, and whatever the formalities with 
which they excused their conduct to themselves, 
the importance and magnitude of the victory 
were universally acknowledged. A grant of 
10,000/. was voted to Nelson by the East India 
Company; the Turkish Company presented 
him with a piece of plate ; the City of London 
presented a sword to him, and to each of his 
captains; gold medals were distributed to the 
Captains; and the First Lieutenants of all the 
ships were promoted, as had been done after 
Lord Howe's victory. Nelson was exceedingly 
anxious that the Captain and First Lieutenant 
of the Culloden should not be passed over 
because of their misfortune. To Troubridge 
himself he said, "Let us rejoice that the ship 
which got on shore was commanded by an 
officer whose character is so thoroughly estab- 
lished." To the Admiralty he stated, that 
Captain Troubridge's conduct was as fully 
entitled to praise as that of any one officer in 
the squadron, and as highly deserving of re- 
ward. "It was Troubridge," said he, "who 
equipped the squadron so soon at Syracuse: 
it was Troubridge who exerted himself for me 
after the action : it was Troubridge who saved 
the Culloden, when none that I know in the 
service would have attempted it." The gold 
medal, therefore, by the king's express desire, 
was given to Captain Troubridge, "for his ser- 
vices both before and since, and for the great 
and wonderful exertion which he made at the 
time of the action, in saving and getting off 
his ship." The private letter from the Ad- 
miralty to Nelson informed him, that the First 
Lieutenants of all the ships engaged were to 
be promoted. Nelson instantly wrote to the 
Commander-in-Chief. "I sincerely hope," 
said he, "this is not intended to exclude the 
First Lieutenant of the Culloden. For Heaven's 
sake — for my sake — if it be so, get it altered. 
Our dear friend Troubridge has endured 
enough. His sufferings were, in every respect, 
more than any of us." To the Admiralty he 
wrote in terms equally warm. "I hope, and 
believe, the word engaged is not intended to 
exclude the Culloden. The merit of that ship, 



328 



JANE AUSTEN 



and her gallant captain are too well known to 
benefil by anything I could say. Her misfor 
tunc was great in getting aground, while her 
more fortunate companions were in the full 
tide of happiness. No; I am confident that 
inv good Lord Spencer will never add misery 

to misfortune. Captain Troubridge on shore 
is superior to captains afloat : in the midst of 

his great misfortunes he made those signals 
which prevented certainly the Alexander and 
Swiftsure from running on the shoals. I beg 
your pardon for writing on a subject which, 1 
verily believe, has never entered your lordship's 
head; but my heart, as it ought to he, is warm 
to my gallant friends." Thus feelingly alive 
was Nelson to the claims, and interests, and 
feelings of others. The Admiralty replied, 
that the exception was necessary, as the ship 
had not been in action: hut they desired the 
Commander in Chief to promote the Lieu- 
tenant upon the first vacancy which should 

iii'i'iir 5|* ?j* ?|C ?t* nc 



JANE AUSTEN (i 775-1817) 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 

CHAPTER 1 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that 
a single man in possession of a good fortune 
must he in want of a wife. 

However little known the feelings or views 
of such a man may he on his first entering a 
neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the 
minds of the surrounding families, that he is 
considered as the rightful property of some 
one or other of their daughters. 

"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to 
him one day, "Have vou heard that Nether- 
field Park is let at last?" 

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. 

"Hut it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long 
has just been here, and she told me all about 
it." " 

Mr. Rennet made DO answer. 

"Do not vou want to know who has taken 
it?" cried his wife impatiently. 

" You want to tell me, and 1 have no objec- 
tion to hearing it." 

This was invitation enough. 

"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long 
says that Nctherficld is taken by a young man 
of large fortune from the north of England; 
that he came down on Monday in a chaise and 
four to see the place, and was so much delighted 



with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris im- 
mediately; that he is to take possession before 
Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to 
be in the house by the end of next week." 

"What is his name?" 

" Bingley." 

"Is he married or single?" 

"Oh ! single, my dear, to be sure ! A single 
man of large fortune; four or five thousand a 
year. What a fine thing for our girls!" 

"How ^o'^ how can it affect them?" 

"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, 
"how can you be so tiresome! you must know 
that 1 am thinking of his marrying one of 
them." 

" Is that his design in settling here?" 

"Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! 
Hut it is very likely that he may fall in love 
with one of them, and therefore you must 
visit him as soon as he comes." 

"I see no occasion for that. You and the 
girls may go, or vou may send them by them- 
selves, which perhaps will be still better, for as 
you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. 
Bingley might like you the best of the party." 

"My dear, you (latter me. I certainly have 
had my share of beauty, but 1 do not pretend 
to be anything extraordinary now. When a 
woman has live grown up daughters, she ought 
to give over thinking of her own beauty." 

"In such cases, a woman has not often much 
beauty to think of." 

"But, my dear, vou must indeed go and see 
Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neigh- 
bourhood." 

" It is more than I engage for, I assure you." 

"But consider your daughters, Only think 
what an establishment it would be for one of 
them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are de- 
termined to go, merely on that account, for 
in general, you know, they visit no new-comers. 
Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible 
for US to visit him if you do not." 

"You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare 
say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; 
and I will send a few lines by you to assure him 
of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever 
he chooses of the girls: though I must throw 
in a good word for my little Lizzy." 

"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy 
- is not a bit better than the Others; and I am 
sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, not- 
half so good-humoured as Lydia. Hut you are 
always giving her the preference." 

"They have none of them much to recom 
mend them," replied he; "they are all silly 



PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 



329 



and ignorant, like other girls; but Lizzie has 
something more of quickness than her sisters." 

"Mr. Hen net, how can you abuse your own 
children in such a way! You take delight in 
vexing me. You have no compassion on my 
poor nerves." 

"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high 
respect for your nerves. They are my old 
friends. 1 have heard you mention them with 
consideration these twenty years at least." 

"Ah ! you do not know what I suffer." 

"But I hope you will get over it, and live to 
sec many young men of four thousand a year 
come into the neighbourhood." 

"It will be no use to us, if twenty such should 
come, since you will not visit them." 

"Depend upon it, my dear, that when there 
are twenty, I will visit them all." 

Mr. Bcnnet was so odd a mixture of quick 
parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, 
that the experience of three-and-twenty years 
had been insufficient to make his wife under- 
stand his character. Her mind was less dif- 
ficult to develope. She was a woman of mean 
understanding, little information, and uncer- 
tain temper. When she was discontented, she 
fancied herself nervous. The business of her 
life was to get her daughters married; its solace 
was visiting and news. 

CHAPTER II 

Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those 
who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always 
intended to visit him, though to the last always 
assuring his wife that he should not go; and 
till the evening after the visit was paid she had 
no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in 
the following manner: — Observing his second 
daughter employed in trimming a hat, he sud- 
denly addressed her with, 

"I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy." 

"We are not in a way to know what Mr. 
Bingley likes," said her mother resentfully, 
"since we are not to visit." 

"But you forget, mamma," said Elizabeth, 
"that we shall meet him at the assemblies, 
and that Mrs. Long has promised to introduce 
him." 

"I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such 
thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is 
a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no 
opinion of her." 

"No more have I," said Mr. Bennet; "and I 
am glad to find that you do not depend on her 
serving you." 



Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply, 
but, unable to contain herself, began scolding 
one of her daughters. 

"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven's 
sake ! Have a little compassion on my nerves. 
You tear them to pieces." 

"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs," 
said her father; "she times them ill." 

"I do not cough for my own amusement," 
replied Kitty fretfully. "When is your next 
ball to be, Lizzy?" 

"To-morrow fortnight." 

"Aye, so it is," cried her mother, "and Mrs. 
Long does not come back till the day before; 
so it will be impossible for her to introduce him, 
for she will not know him herself." 

"Then, my dear, you may have the advan- 
tage of your friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley 
to her." 

"Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when 
I am not acquainted with him myself; how can 
you be so teasing?" 

"I honour your circumspection. A fort- 
night's acquaintance is certainly very I it He. 
One cannot know what a man really is by the 
end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture 
somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long 
and her nieces must stand their chance; and, 
therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, 
if you decline the office, I will lake it on myself." 

The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Ben- 
net said only, "Nonsense, nonsense!" 

"What can be the meaning of that emphatic 
exclamation?" cried he. "Do you consider 
the forms of introduction, and the stress that 
is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite 
agree with you there. What say you, Mary? 
for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I 
know, and read great books and make extracts." 

Mary wished to say something very sensible, 
but knew not how. 

"While Mary is adjusting her ideas," he con- 
tinued, "let us return to Mr. Bingley." 

"I am sick of Mr. Bingley," cried his wife. 

"I am sorry to hear that; but why did not 
you tell me so before? If I had known as 
much this morning I certainly would not have 
called on him. It is very unlucky; but as I 
have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape 
the acquaintance now." 

The astonishment of the ladies was just what 
he wished; that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps sur- 
passing the rest; though, when the first tumult 
of joy was over, she began to declare that it 
was what she had expected all the while. 

"How good it was in you, my dear Mr. 



33° 



JANE AUSTEN 



Bcnnct! But I knew I should persuade you 
at last. I was sure you loved your girls too 
well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well, 
how pleased 1 am ! and it is such a good joke, 
too, that you should have gone this morning and 
never said a word about it till now." 

"Now, Kilty, you may cough as much as you 
choose," said Mr. Bennet; and, as he spoke, 
he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of 
his wife. 

"What an excellent father you have, girls!" 
said she, when the door was shut. "I do not 
know how you will ever make him amends for 
his kindness; or me either, for that matter. 
At our time of life it is not so pleasant, I can 
tell you, to be making new acquaintance every 
day; but for your sakes, we would do anything. 
Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, 
1 dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at 
the next ball." 

"Oh!" said Lydia stoutly, "I am not afraid; 
for though I am the youngest, I'm the tallest." 

The rest of the evening was spent in con- 
jecturing how soon he would return Mr. 
Bennet's visit, and determining when they 
should ask him to dinner. 



CHAPTER III 

Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the 
assistance of her five daughters, could ask on 
the subject, was sufficient to draw from her 
husband any satisfactory description of Mr. 
Bingley. They attacked him in various ways 
— with barefaced questions, ingenious sup- 
positions, and distant surmises; but he eluded 
the skill of them all, and they were at last 
obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence 
of their neighbour, Lady Lucas. Her report 
was highly favourable. Sir William had been 
delighted with him. He was quite young, 
wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, 
and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at 
the next assembly with a large party. Noth- 
ing could be more delightful! To be fond of 
dancing was a certain step towards falling in 
love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Binglcy's 
heart were entertained. 

"If I can but see one of my daughters 
happily settled at Netherfield," said Mrs. 
Bennet to her husband, "and all the others 
equally well married, 1 shall have nothing to 
w Ish for." 

In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. 
Bennet's visit, and sat about ten minutes with 



him in his library. He had entertained hopes 
of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, 
of whose beauty he had heard much; but he 
saw only the father. The ladies were some- 
what more fortunate, for they had the ad- 
vantage of ascertaining from an upper window 
that he wore a blue coat, and rode a black 
horse. 

An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards 
despatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet 
planned the courses that were to do credit 
to her housekeeping, when an answer arrived 
which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged 
to be in town the following day, and, conse- 
quentlv, unable to accept the honour of their 
invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite dis- 
concerted. She could not imagine what busi- 
ness he could have in town so soon after his 
arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear 
that he might be always Hying about from one 
place to another, and never settled at Nether- 
field as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted 
her fears a little by starting the idea of his being 
gone to London only to get a large party for 
the ball; and a report soon followed, that Mr. 
Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven 
gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls 
grieved over such a number of ladies, but were 
comforted the day before the ball by hearing, 
that instead of twelve he had brought only six 
from London, — his five sisters and a cousin. 
And when the party entered the assembly room 
it consisted only of five all together, — Mr. 
Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the 
eldest, and another young man. 

Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentle- 
manlike; he had a pleasant countenance, 
and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters 
were fine women, with an air of decided fash- 
ion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely 
looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. 
Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by 
his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble 
mien, and the report which was in general 
circulation within five minutes after his en- 
trance, of his having ten thousand a year. 
The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine 
figure of a man, the ladies declared he was 
much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was 
looked at with great admiration for about half 
the evening, till his manners gave a disgust 
which turned the tide of his popularity; for 
he was discovered to be proud, to be above his 
company, and above being pleased; and not all 
his large estate in Derbyshire could then save 
him from having a most forbidding, disagree- 



PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 



33i 



able countenance, and being unworthy to be 
compared with his friend. 

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself ac- 
quainted with all the principal people in the 
room; he was lively and unreserved, danced 
every dance, was angry that the ball closed 
so early, and talked of giving one himself at 
Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must 
speak for themselves. What a contrast between 
him and his friend ! Mr. Darcy danced only 
once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss 
Bingley, declined being introduced to any other 
lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walk- 
ing about the room, speaking occasionally 
to one of his own party. His character was 
decided. He was the proudest, most disagree- 
able man in the world, and everybody hoped 
that he would never come there again. 
Amongst the most violent against him was 
Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general be- 
haviour was sharpened into particular resent- 
ment by his having slighted one of her daugh- 
ters. 

Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the 
scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two 
dances; and during part of that time, Mr. 
Darcy had been standing near enough for her 
to overhear a conversation between him and 
Mr. Bingley, who came from the dance for a 
few minutes, to press his friend to join it. 

"Come, Darcy," said he, "I must have you 
dance. I hate to see you standing about by 
yourself in this stupid manner. You had much 
better dance." 

"I certainly shall not. You know how I 
detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted 
with my partner. At such an assembly as this 
it would be insupportable. Your sisters are 
engaged, and there is not another woman in 
the room whom it would not be a punishment 
to me to stand up with." 

"I would not be so fastidious as you are," 
cried Bingley, "for a kingdom! Upon my 
honour, I never met with so many pleasant 
girls in my life as I have this evening; and there 
are several of them you see uncommonly 
pretty." 

" You are dancing with the only handsome 
girl in the room," said Mr. Darcy, looking at 
the eldest Miss Bennet. 

" Oh ! she is the most beautiful creature I 
ever beheld ! But there is one of her sisters 
sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, 
and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask 
my partner to introduce you." 

"Which do you mean?" and turning round 



he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catch- 
ing her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly 
said, "She is tolerable, but not handsome 
enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour 
at present to give consequence to young ladies 
who are slighted by other men. You had better 
return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, 
for you are wasting your time with me." 

Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. 
Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with 
no very cordial feelings towards him. She told 
the story, however, with great spirit among her 
friends ; for she had a lively, playful disposition, 
which delighted in anything ridiculous. 

The evening altogether passed off pleasantly 
to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen 
her eldest daughter much admired by the 
Netherfield party. Mr. Bingley had danced 
with her twice, and she had been distinguished 
by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified 
by this as her mother could be, though in a 
quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's pleasure. 
Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss 
Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the 
neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had 
been fortunate enough to be never without 
partners, which was all that they had yet learned 
to care for at a ball. They returned, therefore, 
in good spirits to Longbourn, the village where 
they lived, and of which they were the principal 
inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. 
With a book he was regardless of time; and 
on the present occasion he had a good deal 
of curiosity as to the event of an evening which 
had raised such splendid expectations. He 
had rather hoped that all his wife's views on 
the stranger would be disappointed; but he 
soon found that he had a very different story 
to hear. 

"Oh ! my dear Mr. Bennet," as she entered 
the room, "we have had a most delightful 
evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had 
been there. Jane was so admired, nothing 
could be like it. Everybody said how well she 
looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite 
beautiful, and danced with her twice ! Only 
think of thai, my dear; he actually danced 
with her twice ! and she was the only 
creature in the room that he asked a second 
time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. 
I was so vexed to see him stand up with her! 
but, however, he did not admire her at all; 
indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed 
quite struck with Jane as she was going down 
the dance. So he inquired who she was, and 
got introduced, and asked her for the two next. 



33 2 



JANE AUSTEN 



Then the two third he danced with Miss King 
and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the 
two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth 
with Lizzie and the Boulanger." 

"If he had had any compassion for me," 
cried her husband impatiently, "he would not 
have danced half so much ! For God's sake, 
say no more of his partners. O that he had 
sprained his ankle in the first dance!" 

"Oh! my dear," continued Mrs. Bennet, 
"I am quite delighted with him. He is so 
excessively handsome ! and his sisters are 
charming women. I never in my life saw 
anything more elegant than their dresses. I 
dare say the lace upon Mrs. Hurst's gown — " 

Here she was interrupted again. Mr. 
Bennet protested against any description of 
finery. She was therefore obliged to seek 
another branch of the subject, and related with 
much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration, 
the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy. 

"But I can assure you," she added, "that 
Lizzie does not lose much by not suiting his 
fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid 
man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and 
so conceited that there was no enduring him ! 
He walked here, and he walked there, fancying 
himself so very great ! Not handsome enough 
to dance with ! I wish you had been there, 
my dear, to have given him one of your set- 
downs. I quite detest the man." 

CHAPTER IV 

When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the 
former, who had been cautious in her praise 
of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister 
how very much she admired him. 

"He is just what a young man ought to be," 
said she, "sensible, good-humoured, lively; 
and I never saw such happy manners ! — so 
much ease, with such perfect good-breeding!" 

"He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth; 
"which a young man ought likewise to be, 
if he possibly can. His character is thereby 
complete." 

"I was very much flattered by his asking me 
to dance a second time. I did not expect such 
a compliment." 

"Did not you? J did for you. But that 
is one great difference between us. Compli- 
ments always take you by surprise, and me 
never. What could be more natural than his 
asking you again? He could not help seeing 
that you were about five times as pretty as every 
other woman in the room. No thanks to his 



gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is very 
agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. 
You have liked many a stupider person." 

"Dear Lizzy!" 

"Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you 
know, to like people in general. You never 
see a fault in anybody. All the world are 
good and agreeable in your eyes. I never 
heard you speak ill of a human being in my 
life." 

"I would wish not to be hasty in censuring 
any one; but I always speak what I think." 

"I know you do; and it is that which makes 
the wonder. With your good sense, to be so 
honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of 
others! Affectation of candour is common 
enough — one meets it everywhere. But to 
be candid without ostentation or design — to 
take the good of everybody's character and 
make it still better, and say nothing of the bad 
— belongs to you alone. And so you like this 
man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners 
are not equal to his." 

"Certainly not — at first. But they are 
very pleasing women when you converse with 
them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, 
and keep his house; and I am much mistaken 
if we shall not find a very charming neighbour 
in her." 

Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not con- 
vinced; their behaviour at the assembly had 
not been calculated to please in general; and 
with more quickness of observation and less 
pliancy of temper than her sister, and with a 
judgment, too, unassailed by any attention to 
herself, she was very little disposed to approve 
them. They were in fact very fine ladies; 
not deficient in good humour when they were 
pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable 
when they chose it, but proud and conceited. 
They were rather handsome, had been edu- 
cated in one of the first private seminaries in 
town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, 
were in the habit of spending more than they 
ought, and of associating with people of rank, 
and were therefore in every respect entitled to 
think well of themselves, and meanly of others. 
They were of a respectable family in the north 
of England; a circumstance more deeply im- 
pressed on their memories than that their 
brother's fortune and their own had been 
acquired by trade. 

Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount 
of nearly an hundred thousand pounds from 
his father, who had intended to purchase an 
estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley 



PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 



333 



intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice 
of his county; but as he was now provided with 
a good house and the liberty of a manor, it 
was doubtful to many of those who best knew 
the easiness of his temper, whether he might 
not spend the remainder of his days at Nether- 
field, and leave the next generation to purchase. 

His sisters were very anxious for his having 
an estate of his own; but, though he was now 
established only as a tenant, Miss Bingley was 
by no means unwilling to preside at his table 
— nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married a 
man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed 
to consider his house as her home when it 
suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of age 
two years, when he was tempted by an acci- 
dental recommendation to look at Netherfield 
House. He did look at it, and into it for half- 
an-hour — was pleased with the situation and 
the principal rooms, satisfied with what the 
owner said in its praise, and took it imme- 
diately. 

Between him and Darcy there was a very 
steady friendship, in spite of great opposition 
of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy 
by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his 
temper, though no disposition could offer a 
greater contrast to his own, and though with 
his own he never appeared dissatisfied. On 
the strength of Darcy's regard, Bingley had the 
firmest reliance, and of his judgment the high- 
est opinion. In understanding, Darcy was the 
superior. Bingley was by no means deficient, 
but Darcy was clever. He was at the same 
time haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his 
manners, though well-bred, were not inviting. 
In that respect his friend had greatly the ad- 
vantage. Bingley was sure of being liked 
wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually 
giving offence. 

The manner in which they spoke of the 
Meryton assembly was sufficiently character- 
istic. Bingley had never met with pleasanter 
people or prettier girls in his life; everybody 
had been most kind and attentive to him; 
there had been no formality, no stiffness; 
he had soon felt acquainted with all the room ; 
and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive 
an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the 
contrary, had seen a collection of people in 
whom there was little beauty and no fashion, 
for none of whom he had felt the smallest in- 
terest, and from none received either attention 
or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to 
be pretty, but she smiled too much. 

Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so 



■ — but still they admired her and liked her, 
and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one 
whom they should not object to know more of. 
Miss Bennet was therefore established as a 
sweet girl, and their brother felt authorised by 
such commendation to think of her as he chose. 



CHAPTER V 

Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a 
family with whom the Bennets were particu- 
larly intimate. Sir William Lucas had been 
formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had 
made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the 
honour of knighthood by an address to the king 
during his mayoralty. The distinction had 
perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given 
him a disgust to his business, and to his resi- 
dence in a small market town; and, quitting 
them both, he had removed with his family 
to a house about a mile from Meryton, denomi- 
nated from that period Lucas Lodge, where he 
could think with pleasure of his own importance, 
and, unshackled by business, occupy himself 
solely in being civil to all the world. For, 
though elated by his rank, it did not render 
him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all 
attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, 
friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. 
James's had made him courteous. 

Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, 
not too clever to be a valuable neighbour 
to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. 
The eldest of them, a sensible, intelligent young 
woman, about twenty-seven, was Elizabeth's 
intimate friend. 

That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets 
should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely 
necessary; and the morning after the assembly 
brought the former to Longbourn to hear and 
to communicate. 

" You began the evening well, Charlotte," 
said Mrs. Bennet with civil self-command to 
Miss Lucas. " You were Mr. Bingley's first 
choice." 

"Yes; but he seemed to like his second 
better." 

"Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because 
he danced with her twice. To be sure that did 
seem as if he admired her — indeed I rather 
believe he did — I heard something about it 
— but I hardly know what — something about 
Mr. Robinson." 

"Perhaps you mean what I overheard be- 
tween him and Mr. Robinson; did not I men- 



334 



JANE AUSTEN 



tion it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him 
how he liked our Meryton assemblies, and 
whether he did not think there were a great 

many pretty women in the room, and which 
he thought the prettiest? and his answering 
immediately to the last question — 'Oh! the 
eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt; there 
cannot be two opinions on that point.'" 

"Upon my word! — Well, that was very 
decided indeed — that does seem as if — but, 
however, it may all come to nothing, you 
know." 

"My overhearings were more to the pur- 
pose than yours, Eliza," said Charlotte. " Mr. 
barer is not so well worth listening to as his 
friend, is he? — Poor Eliza ! — to be only just 
tolerable." 

"I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's 
head to be vexed by his ill-treatment, for he is 
such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite 
a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long 
told me last night that he sat close to her for 
half-an-hour without once opening his lips." 

"Are you quite sure, ma'am? — is not there 
a little mistake?" said Jane. "I certainly saw 
Mr. Darcy speaking to her." 

"Aye — because she asked him at last how 
he liked Ncthcrncld, and he could not help 
answering her; but she said he seemed very 
angry at being spoke to." 

"Miss Bingley told me," said Jane, "that 
he never speaks much, unless among his inti- 
mate acquaintance. With them he is remark- 
ably agreeable." 

"I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If 
he had been so very agreeable, he would have 
talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it 
was; everybody says that he is eat up with 
pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow 
that Mrs. Long docs not keep a carriage, and 
had come to the ball in a hack chaise." 

"I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long," 
said Miss Lucas, "but I wish he had danced 
with Eliza," 

"Another time, Lizzy," said her mother, 
"I would not dance with him, if 1 were you." 

"I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you 
never to dance with him." 

"His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not 
offend me so much as pride often does, because 
there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder 
that so very fine a young man, with family, 
fortune, everything in his favour, should think 
highly of himself. If I may so express it, he 
has a right to be proud." 

"That is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and 



I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not 
mortified mine." 

"Pride," observed Mary, who piqued her- 
self upon the solidity of her reflections, "is 
a very common failing, I believe. By all that 
1 have ever read, 1 am convinced that it is very 
common indeed; that human nature is par- 
ticularly prone to it, and that there are very 
few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self- 
complacency on the score of some quality or 
the other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride 
are different things, though the words are often 
used synonymously. A person may be proud 
without being vain. Pride relates more to our 
opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would 
have others think of us." 

"If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy," cried a 
young Lucas, who came with his sisters, "I 
should not care how proud I was. I would 
keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle 
of wine every day." 

"Then you would drink a great deal more 
than you ought," said Mrs. Bennet; "and if I 
were to see you at it, 1 should take away your 
bottle directly." 

The boy protested that she should not; she 
continued to declare that she would, and the 
argument ended only with the visit. 

CHAPTER VI 

The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on 
those of Netherfield. The visit was returned 
in due form. Miss Bennet's pleasing manners 
grew on the goodwill of Mrs. Hurst and Miss 
Bingley; ami though the mother was found to 
be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth 
Speaking to, a wish of being better acquainted 
with them was expressed towards the two 
eldest. By Jane, this attention was received 
with the greatest pleasure; but Elizabeth still 
saw superciliousness in their treatment of even- 
body, hardly excepting even her sister, ami could 
not like them; though their kindness to Jane, 
such as it was, had a value as arising in all 
probability from the influence of their brother's 
admiration. It was generally evident when- 
ever they met that he did admire her; and to 
her it was equally evident that Jane was yield- 
ing to the preference which she had begun to 
entertain for him from the first, and was in a 
way to be very much in love ; but she considered 
with pleasure that it was not likely to be dis- 
covered by the world in general, since Jane 
united, with great strength of feeling, a com- 
posure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness 






PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 



335 



of manner which would guard her from the 
suspicions of the impertinent. She mentioned 
this to her friend Miss Lucas. 

"It may perhaps be pleasant," replied Char- 
lotte, "to be able to impose on the public in 
such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvan- 
tage to be so very guarded. If a woman con- 
ceals her affection with the same skill from the 
object of it, she may lose the opportunity of 
fixing him; and it will then be but poor con- 
solation to believe the world equally in the dark. 
There is so much of gratitude or vanity in 
almost every attachment, that it is not safe to 
leave any to itself. We can all begin freely — 
a slight preference is natural enough : but there 
are very few of us who have heart enough to 
be really in love without encouragement. In 
nine cases out of ten a woman had better show 
more affection than she feels. Bingley likes 
your sister, undoubtedly; but he may never 
do more than like her, if she does not help 
him on." 

"But she does help him on, as much as her 
nature will allow. If / can perceive her regard 
for him, he must be a simpleton, indeed, not 
to discover it too." 

"Remember, Eliza, that he does not know 
Jane's disposition as you do." 

"But if a woman is partial to a man, and 
does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find 
it out." 

"Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. 
But, though Bingley and Jane meet tolerably 
often, it is never for many hours together; and 
as they always see each other in large mixed 
parties, it is impossible that every moment 
should be employed in conversing together. 
Jane should therefore make the most of every 
half-hour in which she can command his 
attention. When she is secure of him, there 
will be leisure for falling in love as much as 
she chooses." 

"Your plan is a good one," replied Elizabeth, 
"where nothing is in question but the desire of 
being well married; and if I were determined 
to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare 
say I should adopt it. But these are not Jane's 
feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet, 
she cannot even be certain of the degree of 
her own regard, nor of its reasonableness. She 
has known him only a fortnight. She danced 
four dances with him at Meryton; she saw 
him one morning at his own house, and has 
since dined in company with him four times. 
This is not quite enough to make her under- 
stand his character." 



"Not as you represent it. Had she merely 
dined with him, she might only have discovered 
whether he had a good appetite ; but you must 
remember that four evenings have been also 
spent together — and four evenings may do a 
great deal." 

"Yes; these four evenings have enabled 
them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un 
better than Commerce; but with respect to any 
other leading characteristic, I do not imagine 
that much has been unfolded." 

"Well," said Charlotte, "I wish Jane suc- 
cess with all my heart; and if she were married 
to him to-morrow, I should think she had as 
good a chance of happiness as if she were to 
be studying his character for a twelve-month. 
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of 
chance. If the dispositions of the parties are 
ever so well known to each other or ever so 
similar beforehand, it does not advance their 
felicity in the least. They always continue to 
grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their 
share of vexation; and it is better to know as 
little as possible of the defects of the person with 
whom you are to pass your life." 

"You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is 
not sound. You know it is not sound, and that 
you would never act in this way yourself." 

Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's atten- 
tions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from sus- 
pecting that she was herself becoming an object 
of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. 
Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be 
pretty; he had looked at her without admira- 
tion at the ball; and when they next met, he 
looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner 
had he made it clear to himself and his friends 
that she had hardly a good feature in her face, 
than he began to find it was rendered uncom- 
monly intelligent by the beautiful expression of 
her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded 
some others equally mortifying. Though he 
had detected with a critical eye more than one 
failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was 
forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and 
pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her 
manners were not those of the fashionable 
world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. 
Of this she was perfectly unaware ; — to her 
he was only the man who made himself agree- 
able nowhere, and who had not thought her 
handsome enough to dance with. 

He began to wish to know more of her, and 
as a step towards conversing with her him- 
self, attended to her conversation with others. 
His doing so drew her notice. It was at Sir 



33^ 



JANE AUSTEN 



William Lucas's, where a large party were 
assembled. 

"What does Mr. Darcy mean," said she to 
Charlotte, "by listening to my conversation 
with Colonel Forster?" 

"That is a question which Mr. Darcy only 
can answer." 

"But if he does it any more I shall certainly 
let him know that I see what he is about. 
He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not 
begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon 
grow afraid of him." 

On his approaching them soon afterwards, 
though without seeming to have any intention 
of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to 
mention such a subject to him; which im- 
mediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she 
turned to him and said : — 

"Did not you think, Mr. Darcy, that I 
expressed myself uncommonly well just now, 
when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give 
us a ball at Meryton?" 

"With great energy; — but it is a subject 
which always makes a lady energetic." 

"You arc severe on us." 

"It will be her turn soon to be teased," 
said Miss Lucas. "I am going to open the 
instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows." 

"You are a very strange creature by way 
of a friend ! — always wanting mc to play and 
sing before anybody and everybody ! If my 
vanity had taken a musical turn, you would 
have been invaluable; but as it is, I would 
really rather not sit down before those who 
must be in the habit of hearing the very best 
performers." On Miss Lucas's persevering, 
however, she added, "Very well; if it must be 
so, it must." And gravely glancing at Mr. 
Darcy, "There is a fine old saying, which 
everybody here is of course familiar with — 
' Keep your breath to cool your porridge,' — 
and I shall keep mine to swell my song." 

Her performance was pleasing, though by 
no means capital. After a song or two, and 
before she could reply to the entreaties of 
several that she would sing again, she was 
eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her 
sister Mary, who having, in consequence of 
being the only plain one in the family, worked 
hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was 
always impatient for display. 

Mary had neither genius nor taste; and 
though vanity had given her application, it had 
given her likewise a pedantic air and con- 
ceited manner, which would have injured a 
higher degree of excellence than she had 



reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had 
been listened to with much more pleasure, 
though not playing half so well; and Mary, 
at the end of a long concerto, was glad to 
purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and 
Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, 
who, with some of the Lucases, and two or 
three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one 
end of the room. 

Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent indig- 
nation at such a mode of passing the evening, 
to the exclusion of all conversation, and was 
too much engrossed by his thoughts to per- 
ceive that Sir William Lucas was his neigh- 
bour, till Sir William thus began, 

"What a charming amusement for young 
people this is, Mr. Darcy ! There is nothing 
like dancing after all. 1 consider it as one of 
the first refinements of polished societies." 

"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage 
also of being in vogue amongst the less pol- 
ished societies of the world. Every savage can 
dance." 

Sir William only smiled. "Your friend per- 
forms delightfully," he continued after a pause, 
on seeing Bingley join the group; — "and I 
doubt not that you are an adept in the science 
yourself, Mr. Darcy." 

"You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, 
sir." 

"Yes, indeed, and received no inconsider- 
able pleasure from the sight. Do you often 
dance at St. James's?" 

"Never, sir." 

"Do you not think it would be a proper 
compliment to the place?" 

"It is a compliment which I never pay to 
any place if I can avoid it." 

"You have a house in town, I conclude?" 

Mr. Darcy bowed. 

"I had once some thoughts of fixing in 
town myself — for I am fond of superior 
society; but I did not feel quite certain that 
the air of London would agree with Lady 
Lucas." 

He paused in hopes of an answer; but his 
companion was not disposed to make any; 
and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards 
them, he was struck with the notion of doing 
a very gallant thing, and called out to her — 

"My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you 
dancing? — Mr. Darcy, you must allow me 
to present this young lady to you as a very 
desirable partner. You cannot refuse to 
dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is 
before you." And, taking her hand, he would 



CHARLES LAMB 



337 



have given it to Mr. Darcy, who, though ex- 
tremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive 
it, when she instantly drew back, and said 
with some discomposure to Sir William — 

"Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention 
of dancing. 1 entreat you not to suppose that 
I moved this way in order to beg for a partner." 

Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested 
to be allowed the honour of her hand, but 
in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did 
Sir William at all shake her purpose by his 
attempt at persuasion. 

"You excel so much in the dance, Miss 
Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness 
of seeing you ; and though this gentleman dis- 
likes the amusement in general, he can have 
no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one 
half-hour." 

"Mr. Darcy is all politeness," said Eliza- 
beth, smiling. 

"He is indeed; but considering the induce- 
ment, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder 
at his complaisance — for who would object 
to such a partner?" 

Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. 
Her resistance had not injured her with the 
gentleman, and he was thinking of her with 
some complacency, when thus accosted by 
Miss Bingley — 

"I can guess the subject of your reverie." 

"I should imagine not." 

"You are considering how insupportable it 
would be to pass many evenings in this man- 
ner — in such society; and indeed I am quite 
of your opinion. I was never more annoyed ! 
The insipidity, and yet the noise — the noth- 
ingness, and yet the self-importance of all 
these people ! What would I give to hear 
your strictures on them!" 

"Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure 
you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. 
I have been meditating on the very great 
pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face 
of a pretty woman can bestow." 

Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes 
on his face, and desired he would tell her 
what lady had the credit of inspiring such 
reflections. Mr. Darcy replied with great 
intrepidity: — 

"Miss Elizabeth Bennet." 

"Miss Elizabeth Bennet!" repeated Miss 
Bingley. "I am all astonishment. How long 
has she been such a favourite ? — and pray, 
when am I to wish you joy?" 

"That is exactly the question which I ex- 
pected you to ask. A lady's imagination is 



very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, 
from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew 
you would he wishing me joy." 

"Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall 
consider the matter as absolutely settled. You 
will have a charming mother-in-law, indeed; 
and, of course, she will be always at Pemberly 
with you." 

He listened to her with perfect indifference 
while she chose to entertain herself in this 
manner; and as his composure convinced her 
that all was safe, her wit flowed long. 

CHARLES LAMB (i 775-1834) 
THE TWO RACES OF MEN 

The human species, according to the best 
theory I can form of it, is composed of two 
distinct races, the men who borrow, and the 
men who lend. To these two original diver- 
sities may be reduced all those impertinent 
classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, 
white men, black men, red men. All the 
dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and Medes, 
and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally 
fall in with one or other of these primary 
distinctions. The infinite superiority of the 
former, which I choose to designate as the 
great race, is discernible in their figure, port, 
and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The 
latter are born degraded. "He shall serve 
his brethren." There is something in the air 
of one of this caste, lean and suspicious; con- 
trasting with the open, trusting, generous man- 
ners of the other. 

Observe who have been the greatest bor- 
rowers of all ages — Alcibiades — Falstaff — 
Sir Richard Steele — our late incomparable 
Brinsley — what a family likeness in all four! 

What a careless, even deportment hath your 
borrower! what rosy gills! what a beautiful 
reliance on Providence doth he manifest, — 
taking no more thought than lilies ! What 
contempt for money, — accounting it (yours 
and mine especially) no better than dross ! 
What a liberal confounding of those pedantic 
distinctions of meum and tuum! or rather, 
what a noble simplification of language (be- 
yond Tooke), resolving these supposed oppo- 
sites into one clear, intelligible pronoun adjec- 
tive ! — What near approaches doth he make 
to the primitive community, — to the extent of 
one-half of the principle at least ! 

He is the true taxer "who calleth all the 
world up to be taxed"; and the distance is 



33* 



CHARLES LAMB 



as vast between him and one of us, as sub- 
sisted betwixt the Augustan Majesty and the 
poorest obolary Jew that paid it tribute- 
pittance at Jerusalem ! — His exactions, too, 
have such a cheerful, voluntary air! So far 
removed from your sour parochial or state- 
gatherers, — those ink-horn varlets, who carry 
their want of welcome in their faces ! He 
cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth you 
with no receipt; confining himself to no set 
season. Every day is his Candlemas, or his 
Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the lene 
tormentum of a pleasant look to your purse, — 
which to that gentle warmth expands her 
silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the 
traveller, for which sun and wind contended ! 
He is the true Propontic which never ebbeth ! 
The sea which taketh handsomely at each 
man's hand. In vain the victim, whom he 
delighteth to honour, struggles with destiny; 
he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O 
man ordained to lend — that thou lose not in 
the end, with thy worldly penny, the reversion 
promised. Combine not preposterously in 
thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and 
of Dives ! — but, when thou seest the proper 
authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were 
half-way. Come, a handsome sacrifice ! See 
how light he makes of it ! Strain not courtesies 
with a noble enemy. 

Reflections like the foregoing were forced 
upon my mind by the death of my old friend, 
Ralph Bigod, Esq., who departed this life on 
Wednesday evening; dying, as he had lived, 
without much trouble. He boasted himself a 
descendant from mighty ancestors of that 
name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in 
this realm. In his actions and sentiments he 
belied not the stock to which he pretended. 
Early in life he found himself invested with 
ample revenues; which, with that noble dis- 
interestedness which I have noticed as inherent 
in men of the great race, he took almost im- 
mediate measures entirely to dissipate and 
bring to nothing: for there is something re- 
volting in the idea of a king holding a private 
purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were all 
regal. Thus furnished, by the very act of dis- 
furnishment; getting rid of the cumbersome 
luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) 

To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, 

Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise, 

he sets forth, like some Alexander, upon his 
great enterprise, "borrowing and to borrow!" 



In his periegesis, or triumphant progress 
throughout this island, it has been calculated 
that he laid a tithe part of the inhabitants 
under contribution. I reject this estimate as 
greatly exaggerated: but having had the 
honour of accompanying my friend, divers 
times, in his perambulations about this vast 
city, I own I was greatly struck at first with 
the prodigious number of faces we met, who 
claimed a sort of respectful acquaintance with 
us. He was one day so obliging as to explain 
the phenomenon. It seems, these were his 
tributaries; feeders of his exchequer; gentle- 
men, his good friends (as he was pleased to 
express himself), to whom he had occasionally 
been beholden for a loan. Their multitudes 
did no way disconcert him. He rather took a 
pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, 
seemed pleased to be "stocked with so fair a 
herd." 

With such sources, it was a wonder how he 
contrived to keep his treasury always empty. 
He did it by force of an aphorism, which he 
had often in his mouth, that "money kept 
longer than three days stinks." So he made 
use of it while it was fresh. A good part he 
drank away (for he was an excellent toss-pot), 
some he gave away, the rest he threw away, 
literally tossing and hurling it violently from 
him — as boys do burs, or as if it had been 
infectious, — into ponds, or ditches, or deep 
holes, — inscrutable cavities of the earth : — 
or he would bury it (where he would never 
seek it again) by a river's side under some 
bank, which (he would facetiously observe) 
paid no interest — but out away from him it 
must go peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring 
into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He 
never missed it. The streams were perennial 
which fed his fisc. When new supplies be- 
came necessary, the first person that had the 
felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, 
was sure to contribute to the deficiency. For 
Bigod had an Undeniable way with him. He 
had a cheerful, open exterior, a quick jovial 
eye, a bald forehead, just touched with grey 
(cam Jides). He anticipated no excuse, and 
found none. And, waiving for a while my 
theory as to the great race, I would put it to 
the most untheorising reader, who may at 
times have disposable coin in his pocket, 
whether it is not more repugnant to the kind- 
liness of his nature to refuse such a one as I 
am describing, than to say no to a poor peti- 
tionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, 
by his mumping visnomy, tells you that he 



THE TWO RACES OF MEN 



339 



expects nothing better; and, therefore, whose 
preconceived notions and expectations you do 
in reality so much less shock in the refusal. 

When I think of this man; his fiery glow 
of heart; his swell of feeling; how magnifi- 
cent, how ideal he was; how great at the mid- 
night hour; and when I compare with him 
Jhe companions with whom I have associated 
since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, 
and think that I am fallen into the society of 
lenders, and little men. 

To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather 
cased in leather covers than closed in iron 
coffers, there is a class of alienators more 
formidable than that which I have touched 
upon ; I mean your borrowers of books — those 
mutilators of collections, spoilers of the sym- 
metry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. 
There is Comberbatch, matchless in his depre- 
dations ! 

That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, 
like a great eye-tooth knocked out — (you are 
now with me in my little back study in Blooms- 
bury, Reader!) — with the huge Switzer-like 
tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, 
in their reformed posture, guardant of noth- 
ing) once held the tallest of my folios, Opera 
Bonaventurae, choice and massy divinity, to 
which its two supporters (school divinity also, 
but of a lesser calibre, — Bellarmine, and 
Holy Thomas) showed but as dwarfs, — itself 
an Ascapart ! — that Comberbatch abstracted 
upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is 
more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by than 
to refute, namely, that "the title to property 
in a book" (my Bonaventure, for instance) 
"is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of 
understanding and appreciating the same." 
Should he go on acting upon this theory, 
which of our shelves is safe? 

The slight vacuum in the left-hand case — 
two shelves from the ceiling — scarcely dis- 
tinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser 
— was whilom the commodious resting-place 
of Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hardly 
allege that he knows more about that treatise 
than I do, who introduced it to him, and was 
indeed the first (of the moderns) to discover 
its beauties — but so have I known a foolish 
lover to praise his mistress in the presence of 
a rival more qualified to carry her off than 
himself. — Just below, Dodsley's dramas want 
their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corom- 
bona is ! The remainder nine are as dis- 
tasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the 
fates borrowed Hector. Here stood the Anat- 



omy of Melancholy, in sober state. — There 
loitered the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, 
by some stream side. — In yonder nook, John 
Buncle, a widower-volume, with "eyes closed," 
mourns his ravished mate. 

One justice I must do my friend, that if he 
sometimes, like the sea, sweeps away a treas- 
ure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as 
rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small 
under-collection of this nature (my friend's 
gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he 
has forgotten at what odd places, and de- 
posited with as little memory at mine. I 
take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. 
These proselytes of the gate are welcome as 
the true Hebrews. There they stand in con- 
junction; natives, and naturalised. The latter 
seem as little disposed to inquire out their 
true lineage as I am. — I charge no ware- 
house-room for these deodands, nor shall ever 
put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of 
advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. 

To lose a volume to C. carries some sense 
and meaning in it. You are sure that he 
will make one hearty meal on your viands, if 
he can give no account of the platter after it. 
But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K., 
to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in 
spite of tears and adjurations to thee to for- 
bear, the Letters of that princely woman, the 
thrice noble Margaret Newcastle ? — knowing 
at the time, and knowing that I knew also, 
thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over 
one leaf of the illustrious folio : — what but 
the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish 
love of getting the better of thy friend? — 
Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with 
thee to the Gallican land — 

Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, 
A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, 
Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her 
sex's wonder ! 

— hadst thou not thy play -books, and books 
of jests and fancies, about thee, to keep thee 
merry, even as thou keepest all companies 
with thy quips and mirthful tales? Child of 
the Greenroom, it was unkindly, unkindly done 
of thee. Thy wife, too, that part-French, 
better-part-Englishwoman ! — that she could 
fix upon no other treatise to bear away, in 
kindly token of remembering us, than the 
works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brook — of 
which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, 
Italy, or England, was ever by nature con- 



34o 



CHARLES LAMB 



stituted to comprehend a tittle ! Was there not 
Zimmermann on Solitude? 

Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a 
moderate collection, be shy of showing it; or 
if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, lend 
thy books; but let it be to such a one as 
S. T. C. — he will return them (generally 
anticipating the time appointed) with usury; 
enriched with annotations, tripling their value. 
I have had experience. Many are these 
precious Mss. of his — (in matter oftentimes, 
and almost in quantity not unfrequently, vying 
with the originals) in no very clerkly hand — 
legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir 
Thomas Browne; and those abstruser cogi- 
tations of the Greville, now, alas! wandering 
in Pagan lands. — I counsel thee, shut not thy 
heart, nor thy library, against S. T. C. 



MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 

"A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour 
of the game." This was the celebrated wish 
of old Sarah Battle (now with God), who, 
next to her devotions, loved a good game of 
whist. She was none of your lukewarm 
gamesters, your half-and-half players, who 
have no objection to take a hand, if you want 
one to make up a rubber; who affirm that 
they have no pleasure in winning; that they 
like to win one game and lose another; that 
they can while away an hour very agreeably 
at a card-table, but are indifferent whether 
they play or no; and will desire an adversary 
who has slipped a wrong card, to take it up 
and play another. These insufferable triflers 
are the curse of a table. One of these flies 
will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be 
said that they do not play at cards, but only 
play at playing at them. 

Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She 
detested them, as I do, from her heart and 
soul; and would not, save upon a striking 
emergency, willingly seat herself at the same 
table with them. She loved a thorough-paced 
partner, a determined enemy. She took, and 
gave, no concessions. She hated favours. 
She never made a revoke, nor ever passed it 
over in her adversary without exacting the 
utmost forfeiture. She fought a good fight: 
cut and thrust. She held not her good sword 
(her cards) "like a dancer." She sat bolt 
upright; and neither showed you her cards, 
nor desired to see yours. All people have 
their blind side — their superstitions; and I 



have heard her declare, under the rose, that 
Hearts was her favourite suit. 

I never in my life — and I knew Sarah 
Battle many of the best years of it — saw her 
take out her snuff-box when it was her turn 
to play; or snuff a candle in the middle of a 
game; or ring for a servant, till it was fairly 
over. She never introduced, or connived a{, 
miscellaneous conversation during its process. 
As she emphatically observed, cards were 
cards; and if I ever saw unmingled distaste 
in her fine last-century countenance, it was at 
the airs of a young gentleman of a literary 
turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded 
to take a hand; and who, in his excess of 
candour, declared, that he thought there was 
no harm in unbending the mind now and 
then, after serious studies, in recreations of 
that kind ! She could not bear to have her 
noble occupation, to which she wound up her 
faculties, considered in that light. It was her 
business, her duty, the thing she came into 
the world to do, — and she did it. She un- 
bent her mind afterwards — over a book. 

Pope was her favourite author: his Rape 
of the Lock her favourite work. She once 
did me the favour to play over with me (with 
the cards) his celebrated game of Ombre in 
that poem; and to explain to me how far it 
agreed with, and in what points it would be 
found to differ from, tradrille. Her illustra- 
tions were apposite and poignant; and I had 
the pleasure of sending the substance of them 
to Mr. Bowles; but I suppose they came too 
late to be inserted among his ingenious notes 
upon that author. 

Quadrille, she has often told me, was her 
first love; but whist had engaged her maturer 
esteem. The former, she said, was showy and 
specious, and likely to allure young persons. 
The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners 

— a thing which the constancy of whist ab- 
hors; the dazzling supremacy and regal in- 
vestiture of Spadille — absurd, as she justly 
observed, in the pure aristocracy of whist, 
where his crown and garter give him no proper 
power above his brother-nobility of the Aces; 

— the giddy vanity, so taking to the inexperi- 
enced, of playing alone; above all, the over- 
powering attractions of a Sans Prendre Vole, — 
to the triumph of which there is certainly noth- 
ing parallel or approaching, in the contin- 
gencies of whist ; — all these, she would say, 
make quadrille a game of captivation to the 
young and enthusiastic. But whist was the sol- 
ider game: that was her word. It was a long 



MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 



34i 



meal; not like quadrille, a feast of snatches. 
One of two rubbers might co-extend in dura- 
tion with an evening. They gave time to form 
rooted friendships, to cultivate steady enmities. 
She despised the chance-started, capricious, 
and ever-fluctuating alliances of the other. 
The skirmishes of quadrille, she would say, 
reminded her of the petty ephemeral embroil- 
ments of the little Italian states, depicted by 
Machiavel: perpetually changing postures and 
connections; bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings 
to-morrow; kissing and scratching in a breath; 
— but the wars of whist were comparable to 
the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational antipa- 
thies of the great French and English nations. 

A grave simplicity was what she chiefly 
admired in her favourite game. There was 
nothing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage — 
nothing superfluous. No flushes — that most 
irrational of all pleas that a reasonable being 
can set up: — that any one should claim four 
by virtue of holding cards of the same mark 
and colour, without reference to the playing 
of the game, or the individual worth or pre- 
tensions of the cards themselves! She held 
this to be a solecism; as pitiful an ambition 
at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She 
despised superficiality, and looked deeper than 
the colours of things. — Suits were soldiers, 
she would say, and must have a uniformity of 
array to distinguish them: but what should 
we say to a foolish squire, who should claim 
a merit from dressing up his tenantry in red 
jackets, that never were to be marshalled — 
never to take the field ? — She even wished that 
whist were more simple than it is; and, in my 
mind, would have stripped it of some ap- 
pendages, which, in the state of human frailty, 
may be venially, and even commendably, 
allowed of. She saw no reason for the decid- 
ing of the trump by the turn of the card. 
Why not one suit always trumps? — Why 
two colours, when the mark of the suit would 
have sufficiently distinguished them without it ? 

"But the eye, my dear madam, is agree- 
ably refreshed with the variety. Man is not 
a creature of pure reason — he must have his 
senses delightfully appealed to. We see it in 
Roman Catholic countries, where the music 
and the paintings draw in many to worship, 
whom your quaker spirit of unsensualising 
would have kept out. — You, yourself, have a 
pretty collection of paintings — but confess to 
me, whether, walking in your gallery at Sand- 
ham, among those clear Vandykes, or among 
the Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever 



felt your bosom glow with an elegant delight, 
at all comparable to that you have it in your 
power to experience most evenings over a 
well-arranged assortment of the court-cards? 

— the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a 
procession — the gay triumph -assuring scarlets 

— the contrasting deadly-killing sables — the 
'hoary majesty of spades' — Pam in all his 
glory ! — 

"All these might be dispensed with; and 
with their naked names upon the drab paste- 
board, the game might go on very well, pic- 
tureless; but the beauty of cards would be 
extinguished forever. Stripped of all that is 
imaginative in them, they must degenerate 
into mere gambling. Imagine a dull deal 
board, or drum head, to spread them on, in- 
stead of that nice verdant carpet (next to 
nature's), fittest arena for those courtly com- 
batants to play their gallant jousts and tourneys 
in ! — Exchange those delicately-turned ivory 
markers — (work of Chinese artist, uncon- 
scious of their symbol, — or as profanely 
slighting their true application as the arrant- 
est Ephesian journeyman that turned out those 
little shrines for the goddess) — exchange them 
for little bits of leather (our ancestors' money), 
or chalk and a slate !" — 

The old lady, with a smile, confessed the 
soundness of my logic; and to her approbation 
of my arguments on her favourite topic that 
evening I have always fancied myself indebted 
for the legacy of a curious cribbage-board, 
made of the finest Sienna marble, which her 
maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I 
have elsewhere celebrated) brought with him 
from Florence : — this, and a trifle of five 
hundred pounds, came to me at her death. 

The former bequest (which I do not least 
value) I have kept with religious care; though 
she herself, to confess a truth, was never 
greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essen- 
tially vulgar game, I have heard her say, — 
disputing with her uncle, who was very par- 
tial to it. She could never heartily bring her 
mouth to pronounce "Go," or "That's a go." 
She called it an ungrammatical game. The 
pegging teased her. I once knew her to for- 
feit a rubber (a five-dollar stake) because she 
would not take advantage of the turn-up 
knave, which would have given it her, but 
which she must have claimed by the disgrace- 
ful tenure of declaring "two for his heels." 
There is something extremely genteel in this 
sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a gentle- 
woman born. 



342 



CHARLES LAMB 



Piquet she held the best game at the cards 
for two persons, though she would ridicule the 
pedantry of the terms — such as pique — re- 
pique — the capot — they savoured (she 
thought) of affectation. But games for two, 
or even three, she never greatly cared for. 
She loved the quadrate, or square. She would 
argue thus: — Cards are warfare: the ends 
are gain, with glory. But cards are war, in 
disguise of a sport: when single adversaries 
encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable. 
By themselves, it is too close a fight; with 
spectators, it is not much bettered. No 
looker-on can be interested, except for a bet, 
and then it is a mere affair of money; he 
cares not for your luck sympathetically, or for 
your play. — Three are still worse; a mere 
naked war of every man against every man, 
as in cribbage, without league or alliance; or 
a rotation of petty and contradictory interests, 
a succession of heartless leagues, and not 
much more hearty infractions of them, as in 
tradrille. — But in square games (she meant 
whist), all that is possible to be attained in 
card-plaving is accomplished. There are the 
incentives of profit with honour, common to 
every species — though the latter can be but 
very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games, 
where the spectator is only feebly a partici- 
pator. But the parties in whist are specta- 
tors and principals too. They are a theatre to 
themselves, and a looker-on is not wanted. 
He is rather worse than nothing, and an im- 
pertinence. Whist abhors neutrality, or in- 
terests beyond its sphere. You glory in some 
surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because 
a cold — or even an interested — bystander 
witnesses it, but because your partner sym- 
pathises in the contingency. You win for two. 
You triumph for two. Two are exalted. 
Two again are mortified; which divides their 
disgrace, as the conjunction doubles (by tak- 
ing off the invidiousness) your glories. Two 
losing to two are better reconciled, than one 
to one in that close butchery. The hostile feel- 
ing is weakened by multiplying the channels. 
War becomes a civil game. By such reason- 
ings as these the old lady was accustomed to 
defend her favourite pastime. 

No inducement could ever prevail upon her 
to play at any game, where chance entered 
into the composition, for nothing. Chance, 
she would argue — and here again, admire 
the subtlety of her conclusion ; — chance is 
nothing, but where something else depends 
upon it. It is obvious, that cannot be glory. 



What rational cause of exultation could it 
give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred 
times together by himself? or before specta- 
tors, where no stake was depending? — Make 
a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets with 
but one fortunate number — and what pos- 
sible principle of our nature, except stupid 
wonderment, could it gratify to gain that 
number as many times successively without a 
prize? Therefore she disliked the mixture of 
chance in backgammon, where it was not 
played for money. She called it foolish, and 
those people idiots, who were taken with a 
lucky hit under such circumstances. Games 
of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played 
for a stake, they were a mere system of over- 
reaching. Played for glory, they were a mere 
setting of one man's wit, — his memory, or 
combination -faculty rather — against another's; 
like a mock-engagement at a review, bloodless 
and profitless. She could not conceive a game 
wanting the spritely infusion of chance, the 
handsome excuses of good fortune. Two 
people playing at chess in a corner of a room, 
whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would 
inspire her with insufferable horror and ennui. 
Those well-cut similitudes of Castles and 
Knights, the imagery of the board, she would 
argue (and I think in this case justly), were 
entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard- 
head contests can in no instance ally with 
the fancy. They reject form and colour. A 
pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were 
the proper arena for such combatants. 

To those puny objectors against cards, as 
nurturing the bad passions, she would retort, 
that man is a gaming animal. He must be 
always trying to get the better in something 
or other: — that this passion can scarcely be 
more safely expended than upon a game at 
cards: that cards are a temporary illusion; 
in truth, a mere drama; for we do but play 
at being mightily concerned, where a few idle 
shillings are at stake, yet, during the illusion, 
we are as mightily concerned as those whose 
stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a 
sort of dream-fighting; much ado; great 
battling, and little bloodshed; mighty means 
for disproportioned ends: quite as diverting, 
and a great deal more innoxious, than many 
of those more serious games of life, which men 
play without esteeming them to be such. 

With great deference to the old lady's judg- 
ment in these matters, I think I have experi- 
enced some moments in my life when playing 
at cards for nothing has even been agreeable. 



A CHAPTER ON EARS 



343 



When I am in sickness, or not in the best 
spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and 
play a game at piquet for love with my cousin 
Bridget — Bridget Elia. 

I grant there is something sneaking in it; but 
with a tooth-ache, or a sprained ankle, — when 
you are subdued and humble, — you are glad 
to put up with an inferior spring of action. 

There is such a thing in nature, I am con- 
vinced, as sick whist. 

I grant it is not the highest style of man — I 
deprecate the manes of Sarah Battle — she 
lives not, alas! to whom I should apologise. 

At such times, those terms which my old 
friend objected to, come in as something ad- 
missible — I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, 
though they mean nothing. I am subdued to 
an inferior interest. Those shadows of win- 
ning amuse me. 

That last game I had with my sweet cousin 
(I capotted her) — (dare I tell thee, how 
foolish I am ?) — I wished it might have lasted 
forever, though we gained nothing, and lost 
nothing, though it was a mere shade of play: 
I would be content to go on in that idle folly 
for ever. The pipkin should be ever boiling, 
that was to prepare the gentle lenitive to my 
foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after 
the game was over: and, as I do not much 
relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. 
Bridget and I should be ever playing. 

A CHAPTER ON EARS 

I have no ear. — 

Mistake me not, Reader — nor imagine that 
I am by nature destitute of those exterior 
twin appendages, hanging ornaments, and 
(architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to 
the human capital. Better my mother had 
never borne me. — I am, I think, rather deli- 
cately than copiously provided with those 
conduits; and I feel no disposition to envy 
the mule for his plenty, or the mole for her 
exactness, in those ingenious labyrinthine in- 
lets — those indispensable side-intelligencers. 

Neither have I incurred, or done anything 
to incur, with Defoe, that hideous disfigure- 
ment, which constrained him to draw upon 
assurance — to feel "quite unabashed," and at 
ease upon that article. I was never, I thank 
my stars, in the pillory; nor, if I read them 
aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, 
that I ever should be. 

When therefore I say that I have no ear, 
you will understand me to mean — for music. 



To say that this heart never melted at the 
concord of sweet sounds, would be a foul self- 
libel. "Water parted from the sea" never 
fails to move it strangely. So does "In in- 
fancy." But they were used to be sung at 
her harpsichord (the old-fashioned instrument 
in vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman — 
the gentlest, sure, that ever merited the ap- 
pellation — the sweetest — why should I hesi- 
tate to name Mrs. S , once the blooming 

Fanny Weatheral of the Temple — who had 
power to thrill the soul of Elia, small imp as 
he was, even in his long coats; and to make 
him glow, tremble, and blush with a passion, 
that not faintly indicated the dayspring of that 
absorbing sentiment which was afterwards 
destined to overwhelm and subdue his nature 
quite for Alice W n. 

I even think that sentimentally I am dis- 
posed to harmony. But organically I am in- 
capable of a tune. ■ I have been practising 
"God save the King" all my life; whistling 
and humming of it over to myself in solitary 
corners; and am not yet arrived, they tell 
me, within many quavers of it. Yet hath the 
loyalty of Elia never been impeached. 

I am not without suspicion, that I have 
an undeveloped faculty of music within me. 
For, thrumming, in my wild way, on my friend 
A.'s piano, the other morning, while he was 
engaged in an adjoining parlour, — on his re- 
turn he was pleased to say, "he thought it 
could not be the maid J" On his first surprise 
at hearing the keys touched in somewhat an 
airy and masterful way, not dreaming of me, 
his suspicions had lighted on Jenny. But a 
grace, snatched from a superior refinement, 
soon convinced him that some being — tech- 
nically perhaps deficient, but higher informed 
from a principle common to all the fine arts 
— had swayed the keys to a mood which 
Jenny, with all her (less cultivated) enthusiasm, 
could never have elicited from them. I men- 
tion this as a proof of my friend's penetration, 
and not with any view of disparaging Jenny. 

Scientifically I could never be made to 
understand (yet have I taken some pains) 
what a note in music is; or how one note 
should differ from another. Much less in 
voices can I distinguish a soprano from a tenor. 
Only sometimes the thorough-bass I contrive 
to guess at, from its being supereminently 
harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, 
for my misapplication of the simplest terms 
of that which I disclaim. While I profess my 
ignorance, I scarce know what to say I am 



344 



CIIAkUS I.AMIi 



ignorant of. I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. 
Sostenuto and adagio stand in the like relation 
of obscurity to me; and Sol, Fa, Mi, AY, is 
as conjuring as Baralipton. 

It is hard to stand alone in an age like this, 
— (constituted to the quick and critical per- 
ception of all harmonious combinations, I 
verily believe, beyond all preceding ages, since 
fubal stumbled upon the gamut,) to remain, 
as it were, singly unimpressible to the magic 
influences of an art, which is said to have 
such an especial stroke at soothing, elevating, 

and refining the passions. Yet, rather than 

break the candid current of my confessions, I 

must avow to vou that 1 have received a great 
deal more pain than pleasure from this SO 
cried up faculty. 

I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. 
A carpenter's hammer, in a warm summer 

noon, will fret me into more than midsum- 
mer madness. But those unconnected, unset 
sounds are nothing to the measured malice 
of music. The ear is passive to those single 
strokes; willingly enduring stripes, while it 
hath no task to con. To music it cannot be 
passive. It will strive mine at least will — 

spitt' of its inaptitude, to thrid the maze; like 
an unskilled eye painfully poring upon hiero- 
glyphics. 1 have sat through an Italian Opera, 
till, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, 
1 have rushed out into the noisiest places of 
the crowded Streets, to solace myself with 
sounds, which 1 was not obliged to follow, 
and gel lid of the distracting torment of end- 
less, fruitless, barren attention! 1 take refuge 
in the unpretending assemblage of honest 
common life sounds; and the purgatory of 

the Enraged Musician becomes my paradise. 

I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation 

of the purposes of the cheerful plavhouse) 
watching the faces of the auditory in the pit 
(what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughing Au- 
dience!) immovable, or affecting some faint 
emotion till (as some have said, that our 
occupations in the next world will be but a 

shadow of what delighted US in this) I have 
imagined myself in some cold Theatre in 1 lades, 

when' some of the forms of the earthly one 

should be kept us, with none of the enjoyment ; 
or like that 

— Party in a parlour 

All silent, ami all damned. 
Above all, those insufferable concertos, and 

pieces of music, as they an- called, Ao plague 
and embitter my apprehension. — Words are 



something; but to be exposed to an endless 
battery of mere sounds; to be long a d\ing; 
to lie stretched upon a rack of roses; to keep 
Up languor by unintermitled effort; to pile 
honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to 

an interminable tedious sweetness; to fill up 

sound with feeling, and strain ideas to keep 
pace with it; to gaze on empty frames, and 
be forced to make the -pictures for yourself; 
to read a book, oil slops, and be obliged to 
supply the verbal matter; to invent extempore 

tragedies to answer to the vague gestures 01 an 
inexplicable rambling mime- these are faint 
shadows of what 1 have undergone from a 
series of the ablest -executed pieces of this 
empty instrnmenlol music. 

1 deny not, that in the opening of a concert, 
1 have experienced something vastly lulling 

and agreeable: afterwards followeth the 

languor and the oppression. Like that dis- 
appointing book in l'atmos; or, like the 
comings on of melancholy, described by Bur- 
ton, doth music make her first insinuating 
approaches: — "Most pleasant it is to such as 
are melancholy given, to walk alone in some 
solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by 
some brook side, and to meditate upon some 
delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall 
affect him most, amabUis insania, and mentis 
gratissimtiS error. A most incomparable de- 
light to build castles in the air, to go smil- 
ing to themselves, acting an infinite variety 

of parts, which they suppose, and strongly 
imagine, they act, or that they see done. — 
So delightsome these toys at first, they could 
Spend whole days and nights without sleep, 
even whole years in such contemplations, ami 
fantastical meditations, which are like so 
many dreams, and will hardly be drawn from 
them -winding and unwinding themselves as 
so many clocks, ami still pleasing their hu- 
mours, until at the last the scene turns upon 
a sudden, and they being now habitated to 
such meditations and solitary places, can en- 
dure no company, can think of nothing but 
harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, 
suspicion, siibrustieits pmior, discontent, cares, 
and weariness of life, surprise them on a 
Sudden, and they can think of nothing else: 
continually suspecting, no sooner are their 
eyes open, but this infernal plague of melan- 
choly sei/eth on them, and terrifies their souls, 
representing some dismal object to their minds; 
which now, bv no means, no labour, no persua- 
sions, they can avoid, they cannot be rid of, 
they cannot resist." 



/KSOP AND RHODOPE 



345 



Something like this "scene turning" I have 
cxpci icn< vil al tlie evening pari iis, at the 

house of my good Catholic friend Nov ; 

who, by the aid of a capital organ, himself 
the mosl finished of players, converts his 

drawing room into a chapel, his week (lays 
into Sundays, and these latter into minor 
heavens. 

When my friend commences upon one of 
(hose solemn anthems, which perad vent ure 
struck upon my heedless ear, rambling in the 
side aisles of the dim Abbey, some live and 
thirty years since, waking ;i new sense, and 
putting a soul of old religion into my young 
apprehension — (whether it be that, in which 
the Psalmist, weary of the persecutions of had 

men, wishelh to himself dove's wings — or 
that other which, with a like measure of so- 
briety and pathos, inquireth l>y what means 
the young man shall hest cleanse his mind) — 
a holy calm pervadelh me. — I am for the 
time 

— rapt above earth, 
And possess joys not promised at my birth. 

15 id when this master of the spell, not con- 
tent to have laid a soul pros! rale, goes on, in 
his power, to inflict more Miss than lies in her 
capacity to receive — impatient to overcome 
her "earthly" with his "heavenly,'' — still 
pouring in, for protracted hours, fresh waves 
and fresh from I he sea of sound, or from that 
inexhausted German ocean, above which, in 
triumphant progress, dolphin sealed, ride those 
Arions Haydn and Mozart, with their attend- 
ant Tritons, Bach, Beethoven, and a countless 
tribe, whom to attempt lo reckon up would 
but plunge me again in the deeps, 1 sfagger 
under the weight of harmony, reeling lo and 

fro at my wits' end; -clouds, as of frankin- 
cense, oppress me — priests, altars, censers 
da/./.le before me — -the genius of his religion 
hath me in her toils — a shadowy triple tiara 
invests the brow of my friend, late so naked, 
SO ingenuous — he is Pope, - -- and by him 
sils, like as in the anomaly of dreams, a she- 
Pope too, — tri-coroneteil like himself! — I am 
converted, and yet a Protestant; — at once 
malleus herettCOrwn, and myself grand heresi 
arch: or three heresies centre in my person: 
— I am Marcion, Kbion, and Cerinthus — 
(Jog and Magog -what not? — till the com- 
ing in of the friendly supper tray dissipates 
the figment, and a draught of true Lutheran 
beer (in which chiefly my friend shows himself 
no bigot) at once reconciles me lo the ration- 



alities of a purer faith; and restores lo me the 
genuine unlerrifying aspects of my pleasant 

countenanced host and hostess. 



WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR 
(1775-1864) 

zESOP AND RHODOPE 

SECOND CONVERSATION 

MsOp. And SO, our fellow slaves are given 

to contention on the scon- of dignity? 

Rhodope. I do not believe they are much 
addicted lo contention: for, whenever the 
good Xanthus hears a signal of such mishe 
haviour, he either brings a scourge into the 
midst of them or sends our lady lo scold them 
smartly for it. 

Msop. Admirable evidence against their 
propensity ! 

Rhodope. J will not have you find them out 
SO, nor laugh al I hem. 

Msop. Seeing that the good Xanthus and 
our lady are equally fond of thee, and always 
visit thee both together, the girls, however 
envious, cannot well or safely be arrogant, bill 
must of necessity yield the first place lo ihee. 

Rhodope'. They indeed are observant of the 
kindness thus bestowed upon me: yet they 
afflict me by taunting me continually with 
what I am unable lo deny. 

Msop. If it is true, it ought Utile to trouble 
Ihee; if untrue, less. I know, for I have 
looked into nothing else of late, no evil can 
thy heart have admitted: a sigh of thine lie 
fore the gods would remove the heaviest that 
could fall on it. Pray tell me what it may he. 
Come, be Courageous ; be cheerful. I can eas- 
ily pardon a smile if thou impleadcst me of 
curiosity. 

Rhodope. They remark to me that enemies 
or robbers took them forcibly from their par- 
ents . . . and that . . . and that . . . 

Msop. Likely enough: what then? Why 

desist from speaking? why COVer thy face with 
thy hair and hands? Rhodope! Rhodope I 

dosi thou weep moreover? 

Rhodope. It is so sure ! 

Msop. Was the fault thine? 

Rhodope. O that it were ! ... if there was 
any. 

Msop. While it pains thee in tell it, keep 
ihy silence; but when utterance is a solace, 
(hen imparl it. 

Rhodope. They remind me (oh! who (mild 



346 



WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR 



have had the cruelty to relate it?) that my 
father, my own dear father . . . 

JEsop. Say not the rest: I know it: his day 
was come. 

Rhodopi. . . . sold me, sold me. You 
start: you did not at the lightning last night, 
nor at the rolling sounds above. Ami do you, 
generous /Esop ! do you also call a misfortune 
a disgrace? 

JEsop. If it is, I am among the most dis- 
graceful of men. Didst thou dearly love thy 
father? 

Rhodopi. All loved him. He was very fond 
of me. 

JEsop. And yet sold thee! sold thee to a 
stranger ! 

Rhodofi, He was the kindest of all kind 
fathers, nevertheless. Nine summers ago, you 
may have heard perhaps, there was a grievous 
famine in our land of Thrace. 

JEsop. I remember it perfectly. 

Rhodopi. O poor jEsop ! and were you too 
famishing in your native Phrygia? 

.Esop. The calamity extended beyond the 
narrow sea that separates our countries. Mv 
appetite was sharpened; but the appetite 
and the wits are equally set on the same 
grindstone. 

Rhodopi. I was then scarcely five years old: 
my mother died the year before: my father 
sighed at every funereal, but he sighed more 
deeply at every bridal, song. He loved me 
because he loved her who bore me: and vet 
1 made him sorrowful whether I cried or 
smiled. If ever I vexed him, it was because 
I would not play when he told me, but made 
him, by my weeping, weep again. 

JEsop. And yet he could endure to lose thee ! 
he, thy father! Could any other? could any 
who lives on the fruits of the earth, endure 
it? O age, that art incumbent over me ! blessed 
be thou; thrice blessed! Not that thou stillest 
the tumults of the heart, and promisest eternal 
calm, but that, prevented by thy beneficence, 
I never shall experience this only intolerable 
wretchedness. 

Rhodopi. Alas! alas! 

JEsop. Thou art now happy, and shouldst 
not utter that useless exclamation. 

Rhodopi. You said something angrily and 
vehemently when you stepped aside. Is it 
not enough that the handmaidens doubt the 
kindness of my father? Must so virtuous and 
so wise a man as .Esop blame him also? 

jEsop. Perhaps he is little to be blamed; 
certainly he is much to be pitied. 



Rhodopi, Kind heart ! on which mine must 
never rest I 

.Esop. Rest on it for comfort and for counsel 
when they fail thee: rest on it, as the deities 
on the breast of mortals, to console and purify 
it. 

Rhodopi. Could I remove any sorrow from 
it, I should be contented. 

JEsop. Then be so; and proceed in thy nar- 
rative. 

Rhodopi. Bear with me a little yet. My 
thoughts have overpowered my words, and now 
themselves are overpowered and scattered. 

Forty-seven days ago (this is only the forty- 
eighth since I beheld you first) I was a child; 
I was ignorant, I was careless. 

JEsop. If these qualities are signs of child- 
hood, the universe is a nursery. 

Rhodopi. A I'll id ion, which makes many 
wiser, had no such effect on me. Hut rever- 
ence and love (why should I hesitate at the one 
avowal more than at the other?) came over 
me, to ripen my understanding. 

JEsop. O Rhodope ! we must loiter no longer 
upon this discourse. 

Rhodope. Why not? 

JEsop. Pleasant is yonder beanfield, seen 
over the high papyrus when it waves and 
bends: deep laden with the sweet heaviness of 
its odour is the listless air that palpitates diz- 
zily above it: but Death is lurking for the 
slumberer beneath its blossoms. 

Rhodopi. You must not love then! . . . 
but may not I? 

/Esop. We will . . . but . . . 

Rhodopi. Wei O sound that is to vibrate 
on my breast forever! O hour! happier than 
all other hours since time began! O gracious 
Gods ! who brought me into bondage ! 

.Esop. Be calm, be composed, be circum- 
spect. We must hide our treasure that we 
may not lose it. 

Rhodopi. I do not think that you can love 
me; and 1 fear and tremble to hope so. Ah, 
yes; you have said you did. But again you 
only look at me, and sigh as if you repented. 

JEsop. Unworthy as 1 may be of thy fond 
regard, I am not unworthy of thy fullest con- 
fidence: why distrust me? 

Rhodopi. Never will I . . . never, never. 
To know that I possess your love, surpasses all 
other know ledge, dear as is all that I receive 
from you. 1 should be tired of my own voice 
if I heard it on aught beside: and, even yours 
is less melodious in any other sound than 
Rhodopi, 



JESOV AND RHODOPE 



347 



JEsop. Do such little girls learn to flatter? 

Rhodopb. Teach me how to speak, since you 
could not teach me how to be silent. 

JEsop. Speak no longer of me, but of thy- 
self; and only of things that never pain thee. 

Rhodopb. Nothing can pain me now. 

/Esop. Relate thy story then, from infancy. 

Rhodopb. I must hold your hand: I am 
afraid of losing you again. 

/Esop. Now begin. Why silent so long? 

Rhodopb. I have dropped all memory of 
what is told by me and what is untold. 

JEsop. Recollect a little. I can be patient 
with this hand in mine. 

Rhodopb. I am not certain that yours is any 
help to recollection. 

/Esop. Shall I remove it? 

Rhodopb. O ! now I think I can recall the 
whole story. What did you say? did you ask 
any question? 

/Esop. None, excepting what thou hast an- 
swered. 

Rhodopb. Never shall I forget the morning 
when my father, sitting in the coolest part of 
the house, exchanged his last measure of grain 
for a chlamys of scarlet cloth fringed with 
silver. He watched the merchant out of the 
door, and then looked wistfully into the corn- 
chest. I, who thought there was something 
worth seeing, looked in also, and, finding it 
empty, expressed my disappointment, not 
thinking however about the corn. A faint and 
transient smile came over his countenance at 
the sight of mine. He unfolded the chlamys, 
stretched it out with both hands before me, and 
then cast it over my shoulders. I looked down 
on the glittering fringe and screamed with 
joy. He then went out; and I know not what 
flowers he gathered, but he gathered many; 
and some he placed in my bosom, and some in 
my hair. But I told him with captious pride, 
first that I could arrange them better, and again 
that I would have only the white. However, 
when he had selected all the white, and I had 
placed a few of them according to my fancy, 
I told him (rising in my slipper) he might 
crown me with the remainder. The splen- 
dour of my apparel gave me a sensation of au- 
thority. Soon as the flowers had taken their 
station on my head, I expressed a dignified 
satisfaction at the taste displayed by my father, 
just as if I could have seen how they appeared ! 
But he knew that there was at least as much 
pleasure as pride in it, and perhaps we divided 
the latter (alas! not both) pretty equally. 
He now took me into the market-place, where 



a concourse of people was waiting for the pur- 
chase of slaves. Merchants came and looked 
at me; some commending, others disparaging; 
but all agreeing that I was slender and delicate, 
that I could not live long, and that I should 
give much trouble. Many would have bought 
the chlamys, but there was something less 
salable in the child and flowers. 

JEsop. Had thy features been coarse and 
thy voice rustic, they would all have patted 
thy cheeks and found no fault in thee. 

Rhodopb. As it was, every one had bought 
exactly such another in lime past, and been a 
loser by it. At these speeches I perceived the 
flowers tremble slightly on my bosom, from 
my father's agitation. Although he scoffed at 
them, knowing my healthiness, he was troubled 
internally, and said many short prayers, not 
very unlike imprecations, turning his head aside. 
Proud was I, prouder than ever, when at last 
several talents were offered for me, and by the 
very man who in the beginning had under- 
valued me the most, and prophesied the worst 
of me. My father scowled at him, and re- 
fused the money. I thought he was playing a 
game, and began to wonder what it could be, 
since I never had seen it played before. Then 
I fancied it might be some celebration because 
plenty had returned to the city, insomuch that 
my father had bartered the last of the corn he 
hoarded. I grew more and more delighted 
at the sport. But soon there advanced an 
elderly man, who said gravely, "Thou hast 
stolen this child: her vesture alone is worth 
above a hundred drachmas. Carry her home 
again to her parents, and do it directly, or 
Nemesis and the Eumenides will overtake thee." 
Knowing the estimation in which my father 
had always been holden by his fellow-citizens, 
I laughed again, and pinched his ear. He, 
although naturally choleric, burst forth into 
no resentment at these reproaches, but said 
calmly, "I think I know thee by name, O 
guest ! Surely thou art Xanthus the Samian. 
Deliver this child from famine." 

Again I laughed aloud and heartily; and, 
thinking it was now my part of the game, I 
held out both my arms and protruded my 
whole body towards the stranger. He would 
not receive me from my father's neck, but 
he asked me with benignity and solicitude 
if I was hungry: at which I laughed again, 
and more than ever: for it was early in the 
morning, soon after the first meal, and my 
father had nourished me most carefully and 
plentifully in all the days of the famine. But 



348 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 



Xanthus, waiting for no answer, took out of 
a sack, which one of his slaves carried at his 
side, a cake of wheaten bread and a piece of 
honey-comb, and gave them to me. I held the 
honey-comb to my father's mouth, thinking it 
the most of a dainty. He dashed it to the 
ground; but, seizing the bread, he began to 
devour it ferociously. This also I thought was 
in play; and I clapped my hands at his dis- 
tortions. But Xanthus looked on him like one 
afraid, and smote the cake from him, crying 
aloud, "Name the price." My father now 
placed me in his arms, naming a price much 
below what the other had offered, saying, 
"The gods are ever with thee, O Xanthus; 
therefore to thee do I consign my child." But 
while Xanthus was counting out the silver, 
my father seized the cake again, which the 
slave had taken up and was about to replace 
in the wallet. His hunger was exasperated 
by the taste and the delay. Suddenly there 
arose much tumult. Turning round in the 
old woman's bosom who had received me from 
Xanthus, I saw my beloved father struggling 
on the ground, livid and speechless. The 
more violent my cries, the more rapidly they 
hurried me away ; and many were soon between 
us. Little was I suspicious that he had suf- 
fered the pangs of famine long before: alas! 
and he had suffered them for me. Do I weep 
while I am telling you they ended? I could 
not have closed his eyes; I was too young; 
but I might have received his last breath; the 
only comfort of an orphan's bosom. Do you 
now think him blamable, O rEsop? 

JEsop. It was sublime humanity: it was for- 
bearance and self-denial which even the im- 
mortal gods have never shown us. He could 
endure to perish by those torments which alone 
are both acute and slow; he could number 
the steps of death and miss not one: but he 
could never see thy tears, nor let thee see his. 
O weakness above all fortitude ! Glory to the 
man who rather bears a grief corroding his 
breast, than permits it to prowl beyond, and 
to prey on the tender and compassionate! 
Women commiserate the brave, and men the 
beautiful. The dominion of Pity has usually 
this extent, no wider. Thy father was ex- 
posed to the obloquy not only of the malicious, 
but also of the ignorant and thoughtless, 
who condemn in the unfortunate what they ap- 
plaud in the prosperous. There is no shame 
in poverty or in slavery, if we neither make 
ourselves poor by our improvidence nor slaves 
by our venality. The lowest and highest of 



the human race are sold: most of the inter- 
mediate are also slaves, but slaves who bring 
no money in the market. 

Rhodope. Surely the great and powerful 
are never to be purchased: are they? 

Msop. It may be a defect in my vision, but 
I cannot see greatness on the earth. What 
they tell me is great and aspiring, to me seems 
little and crawling. Let me meet thy question 
with another. What monarch gives his daughter 
for nothing? Either he receives stone walls 
and unwilling cities in return, or he barters her 
for a parcel of spears and horses and horse- 
men, waving away from his declining and help- 
less age young joyous life, and trampling down 
the freshest and the sweetest memories. Midas 
in the highth of prosperity would have given 
his daughter to Lycaon, rather than to the 
gentlest, the most virtuous, the most intelligent 
of his subjects. Thy father threw wealth aside, 
and, placing thee under the protection of Virtue, 
rose up from the house of Famine to partake 
in the festivals of the Gods. 

Release my neck, O Rhodope ! for I have 
other questions to ask of thee about him. 

Rhodope. To hear thee converse on him in 
such a manner, I can do even that. 

JZsop. Before the day of separation was he 
never sorrowful? Did he never by tears or 
silence reveal the secret of his soul? 

Rhodope. I was too infantine to perceive 
or imagine his intention. The night before 
I became the slave of Xanthus, he sat on the 
edge of my bed. I pretended to be asleep : he 
moved away silently and softly. I saw him 
collect in the hollow of his hand the crumbs I 
had wasted on the floor, and then eat them, and 
then look if any were remaining. I thought he 
did so out of fondness for me, remembering 
that, even before the famine, he had often swept 
up off the table the bread I had broken, and 
had made me put it between his lips. I would 
not dissemble very long, but said: 

"Come, now you have wakened me, you must 
sing me asleep again, as you did when I was 
little." 

He smiled faintly at this, and, after some 
delay, when he had walked up and down the 
chamber, thus began : 

"I will sing to thee one song more, my wake- 
ful Rhodopfe ! my chirping bird ! over whom 
is no mother's wing! That it may lull thee 
asleep, I will celebrate no longer, as in the 
days of wine and plenteousness, the glory of 
Mars, guiding in their invisibly rapid onset the 
dappled steeds of Rhaesus. What hast thou 



WILLIAM HAZLITT 



349 



to do, my little one, with arrows tired of clus- 
tering in the quiver? How much quieter is 
thy pallet than the tents which whitened the 
plain of Simois ! What knowest thou about 
the river Eurotas? What knowest thou about 
its ancient palace, once trodden by assembled 
Gods, and then polluted by the Phrygian? 
What knowest thou of perfidious men or of 
sanguinary deeds? 

"Pardon me, O goddess who presidest in 
Cythera ! I am not irreverent to thee, but ever 
grateful. May she upon whose brow I lay my 
hand, praise and bless thee for evermore ! 

"Ah yes! continue to hold up above the 
coverlet those fresh and rosy palms clasped 
together: her benefits have descended on thy 
beauteous head, my child! The Fates also 
have sung, beyond thy hearing, of pleasanter 
scenes than snow-fed Hebrus ; of more than dim 
grottos and sky-bright waters. Even now a 
low murmur swells upward to my ear: and 
not from the spindle comes the sound, but from 
those who sing slowly over it, bending all three 
their tremulous heads together. I wish thou 
couldst hear it; for seldom are their voices so 
sweet. Thy pillow intercepts the song per- 
haps: lie down again, lie down, my Rhodope! 
I will repeat what they are saying: 

'"Happier shalt thou be, nor less glorious, 
than even she, the truly beloved, for whose 
return to the distaff and the lyre the portals 
of Taenarus flew open. In the woody dells of 
Ismarus, and when she bathed among the swans 
of Strymon, the nymphs called her Eurydice. 
Thou shalt behold that fairest and that fond- 
est one hereafter. But first thou must go 
unto the land of the lotos, where famine never 
cometh, and where alone the works of man are 
immortal.' 

"O my child! the undeceiving Fates have 
uttered this. Other powers have visited me, 
and have strengthened my heart with dreams 
and visions. We shall meet again, my Rhodope, 
in shady groves and verdant meadows, and we 
shall sit by the side of those who loved us." 

He was rising: I threw my arms about his 
neck, and, before I would let him go, I made 
him promise to place me, not by the side, but 
between them : for I thought of her who had 
left us. At that time there were but two, O 
^Esop. 

You ponder: you are about to reprove my 
assurance in having thus repeated my own 
praises. I would have omitted some of the 
words, only that it might have disturbed the 
measure and cadences, and have put me out. 



They are the very words my dearest father 
sang; and they are the last: yet, shame upon 
me ! the nurse (the same who stood listening 
near, who attended me into this country) 
could remember them more perfectly: it is 
from her I have learnt them since; she often 
sings them, even by herself. 

JEsop. So shall others. There is much both 
in them and in thee to render them memorable. 

Rhodope. Who flatters now? 

JEsop. Flattery often runs beyond Truth, 
in a hurry to embrace her; but not here. 
The dullest of mortals, seeing and hearing thee, 
would never misinterpret the prophecy of the 
Fates. 

If, turning back, I could overpass the vale 
of years, and could stand on the mountain-top, 
and could look again far before me at the bright 
ascending morn, we would enjoy the prospect 
together; we would walk along the summit 
hand in hand, O Rhodope, and we would only 
sigh at last when we found ourselves below 
with others. 

WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830) 
MR. COLERIDGE 

The present is an age of talkers, and not 
of doers; and the reason is, that the world is 
growing old. We are so far advanced in the 
Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, 
and doat on past achievements. The accumula- 
tion of knowledge has been so great, that we 
are lost in wonder at the height it has reached, 
instead of attempting to climb or add to it; 
while the variety of objects distracts and daz- 
zles the looker-on. What niche remains unoc- 
cupied? What path untried? What is the 
use of doing anything, unless we could do bet- 
ter than all those who have gone before us? 
What hope is there of this? We are like those 
who have been to see some noble monument 
of art, who are content to admire without 
thinking of rivalling it; or like guests after a 
feast, who praise the hospitality of the donor 
"and thank the bounteous Pan" — perhaps 
carrying away some trifling fragments; or 
like the spectators of a mighty battle, who still 
hear its sound afar off, and the clashing of 
armour and the neighing of the war-horse 
and the shout of victory is in their ears, like 
the rushing of innumerable waters ! 

Mr. Coleridge has "a mind reflecting ages 
past"; his voice is like the echo of the con- 
gregated roar of the "dark rearward and 



35° 



WILLIAM HAZLITT 



abyss" of thought. He who has seen a mould- 
ering tower by the side of a crystal lake, hid 
by the mist, but glittering in the wave below, 
may conceive the dim, gleaming, uncertain 
intelligence of his eye; he who has marked the 
evening clouds uprolled (a world of vapours) 
has seen the picture of his mind, unearthly, 
unsubstantial, with gorgeous tints and ever- 
varying forms — 

"That which was now a horse, even with a thought 
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct 
As water is in water." 

Our author's mind is (as he himself might 
express it) tangential. There is no subject on 
which he has not touched, none on which 
he has rested. With an understanding fertile, 
subtle, expansive, "quick, forgetive, appre- 
hensive," beyond all living precedent, few 
traces of it will perhaps remain. He lends 
himself to all impressions alike; he gives up 
his mind and liberty of thought to none. He is 
a general lover of art and science, and wedded 
to no one in particular. He pursues knowledge 
as a mistress, with outstretched hands and 
winged speed; but as he is about to embrace 
her, his Daphne turns — alas! not to a lau- 
rel ! Hardly a speculation has been left on 
record from the earliest time, but it is loosely 
folded up in Mr. Coleridge's memory, like a 
rich, but somewhat tattered piece of tapestry: 
we might add (with more seeming than real 
extravagance) that scarce a thought can pass 
through the mind of man, but its sound has at 
some time or other passed over his head with 
rustling pinions. 

On whatever question or author you speak, 
he is prepared to take up the theme with ad- 
vantage — from Peter Abelard down to Thomas 
Moore, from the subtlest metaphysics to the 
politics of the Courier. There is no man of 
genius, in whose praise he descants, but the 
critic seems to stand above the author, and 
"what in him is weak, to strengthen, what is 
low, to raise and support": nor is there any 
work of genius that does not come out of his 
hands like an illuminated Missal, sparkling 
even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not 
been the most impressive talker of his age, he 
would probably have been the finest writer; 
but he lays down his pen to make sure of 
an auditor, and mortgages the admiration of 
posterity for the stare of an idler. If he had 
not been a poet, he would have been a power- 
ful logician; if he had not dipped his wing in 



the Unitarian controversy, he might have soared 
to the very summit of fancy. But, in writing 
verse, he is trying to subject the Muse to tran- 
scendental theories: in his abstract reasoning, 
he misses his way by strewing it with flowers. 
All that he has done of moment, he had 
done twenty years ago: since then, he may be 
said to have lived on the sound of his own 
voice. Mr. Coleridge is too rich in intellectual 
wealth, to need to task himself to any drudg- 
ery: he has only to draw the slides of his 
imagination, and a thousand subjects expand 
before him, startling him with their brilliancy, 
or losing themselves in endless obscurity — 

" And by the force of blear illusion, 
They draw him on to his confusion." 

What is the little he could add to the stock, 
compared with the countless stores that lie 
about him, that he should stoop to pick up 
a name, or to polish an idle fancy ? He walks 
abroad in the majesty of an universal under- 
standing, eying the "rich strond" or golden sky 
above him, and "goes sounding on his way," 
in eloquent accents, uncompelled and free ! 

Persons of the greatest capacity are often 
those who for this reason do the least; for 
surveying themselves from the highest point of 
view, amidst the infinite variety of the universe, 
their own share in it seems trifling, and scarce 
worth a thought; and they prefer the contem- 
plation of all that is, or has been, or can be, to 
the making a coil about doing what, when done, 
is no better than vanity. It is hafd to con- 
centrate all our attention and efforts on one 
pursuit, except from ignorance of others; and 
without this concentration of our faculties no 
great progress can be made in any one thing. 
It is not merely that the mind is not capable of 
the effort; it does not think the effort worth 
making. Action is one; but thought is mani- 
fold. He whose restless eye glances through the 
wide compass of nature and art, will not con- 
sent to have "his own nothings monstered": 
but he must do this before he can give his whole 
soul to them. The mind, after "letting con- 
templation have its fill," or 

"Sailing with supreme dominion 
Through the azure deep of air," 

sinks down on the ground, breathless, ex- 
hausted, powerless, inactive; or if it must have 
some vent to its feelings, seeks the most easy and 
obvious; is soothed by friendly flattery, lulled 



MR. COLERIDGE 



35i 



by the murmur of immediate applause : thinks, 
as it were, aloud, and babbles in its dreams ! 

A scholar (so to speak) is a more disinterested 
and abstracted character than a mere author. 
The first looks at the numberless volumes 
of a library, and says, "All these are mine": 
the other points to a single volume (perhaps it 
may be an immortal one) and says, "My name 
is written on the back of it." This is a puny 
and grovelling ambition, beneath the lofty 
amplitude of Mr. Coleridge's mind. No, he 
revolves in his wayward soul, or utters to the 
passing wind, or discourses to his own shadow, 
things mightier and more various! — Let us 
draw the curtain, and unlock the shrine. 

Learning rocked him in his cradle, and while 
yet a child, 

"He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 

At sixteen he wrote his Ode on Chatterton, and 
he still reverts to that period with delight, not 
so much as it relates to himself (for that string 
of his own early promise of fame rather jars 
than otherwise) but as exemplifying the youth 
of a poet. Mr. Coleridge talks of himself with- 
out being an egotist; for in him the individual 
is always merged in the abstract and general. 
He distinguished himself at school and at the 
University by his knowledge of the classics, 
and gained several prizes for Greek epigrams. 
How many men are there (great scholars, 
celebrated names in literature) who, having 
done the same thing in their youth, have no 
other idea all the rest of their lives but of this 
achievement, of a fellowship and dinner, and 
who, installed in academic honours, would 
look down on our author as a mere strolling 
bard ! At Christ's Hospital, where he was 
brought up, he was the idol of those among his 
schoolfellows who mingled with their bookish 
studies the music of thought and of humanity; 
and he was usually attended round the cloisters 
by a group of these (inspiring and inspired) 
whose hearts even then burnt within them as he 
talked, and where the sounds yet linger to mock 
Elia on his way, still turning pensive to the past ! 
One of the finest and rarest parts of Mr. 
Coleridge's conversation is, when he expatiates 
on the Greek tragedians (not that he is not 
well acquainted, when he pleases, with the epic 
poets, or the philosophers, or orators, or histo- 
rians of antiquity) — on the subtle reasonings 
and melting pathos of Euripides, on the har- 
monious gracefulness of Sophocles, tuning 
his love-laboured song, like sweetest warblings 



from a sacred grove; on the high-wrought, 
trumpet-tongued eloquence of /Eschylus, whose 
Prometheus, above all, is like an Ode to Fate 
and a pleading with Providence, his thoughts 
being let loose as his body is chained on his 
solitary rock, and his afflicted will (the emblem 
of mortality) 

" Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny." 

As the impassioned critic speaks and rises in 
his theme, you would think you heard the voice 
of the Man hated by the Gods, contending with 
the wild winds as they roar; and his eye glitters 
with the spirit of Antiquity! 

Next, he was engaged with Hartley's tribes 
of mind, "etherial braid, thought-woven," — 
and he busied himself for a year or two with 
vibrations and vibratiuncles, and the great law 
of association that binds all things in its mys- 
tic chain, and the doctrine of Necessity (the 
mild teacher of Charity) and the Millennium, 
anticipative of a life to come; and he plunged 
deep into the controversy on Matter and Spirit, 
and, as an escape from Dr. Priestley's Material- 
ism, where he felt himself imprisoned by the 
logician's spell, like Ariel in the cloven pine- 
tree, he became suddenly enamoured of Bishop 
Berkeley's fairy-world, and used in all com- 
panies to build the universe, like a brave poet- 
ical fiction, of fine words. And he was deep- 
read in Malebranche, and in Cudworth's 
Intellectual System (a huge pile of learning, 
unwieldy, enormous) and in Lord Brook's 
hieroglyphic theories, and in Bishop Butler's 
Sermons, and in the Duchess of Newcastle's 
fantastic folios, and in Clarke and South, and 
Tillotson, and all the fine thinkers and mascu- 
line reasoners of that age; and Leibnitz's Pre- 
established Harmony reared its arch above his 
head, like the rainbow in the cloud, covenanting 
with the hopes of man. 

And then he fell plumb, ten thousand fath- 
oms down (but his wings saved him harm- 
less) into the hortus siccus of Dissent, where he 
pared religion down to the standard of reason, 
and stripped faith of mystery, and preached 
Christ crucified and the Unity of the Godhead, 
and so dwelt for a while in the spirit with John 
Huss and Jerome of Prague and Socinus and 
old John Zisca, and ran through Neal's History 
of the Puritans and Calamy's Non-Conform- 
ists' Memorial, having like thoughts and pas- 
sions with them. But then Spinoza became his 
God, and he took up the vast chain of being 
in his hand, and the round world became the 



35 a 



WILLIAM HAZLITT 



centre and the soul of all things in some shad 
owy sense, forlorn of meaning, and around 
him he beheld the living trail's and the sky 
pointing proportions of the mighty Pan; hut 

poetry redeemed liini from tins spectral phi 

losophy, and he bathed his heart in beauty, 
and gazed at the golden lighl oi' heaven, and 

drank of the spirit of the universe, and wandered 
at eve l>v fairy stream or fountain, 

" — When lu- saw QOUghl lull lieaulv, 

When he beard the voice of that Almighty One 
In every breeae that blew, or wave that mur- 
mured " — 

and wedded with truth in Plato's shade, and in 
the writings Of PrOCluS and PlotinUS saw the 
ideas of things in the eternal mind, and un- 
folded all mysteries with the Schoolmen and 
fathomed the depths of Duns ScotUS and 
Thomas Aquinas, and entered the third heaven 
with Jacob Behmen, and walked hand in hand 
with Swedenborg through the pavilions of 
the New Jerusalem, and sang his faith in the 
promise and in the word in his Religious Mus 

mgs. 

And lowering himself from that dizzy height, 
he poised himself on Milton's wings, and 
spread out his thoughts in charity with the glad 
prose of Jeremy Taylor, and wept over Bowles's 
Sonnets, and studied CowperS blank verse, 
and betook himself to Thomson's Castle 

<>/ Indolence, and sported with the wits of 
Charles the Second's days and of Queen Anne, 

and relished Swift's style and that oi the John 
Hull (Arbuthnot's we mean, not Mr. Choker's), 
and dallied with the British Kssavists and 
Novelists, and knew all qualities of more mod- 
em writers with a learned spirit: Johnson, and 
Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke, and God- 
win, and the Sorrows <;/' Werter, and Jean 
Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire, and Mari- 
vaux, and Crebillon, and thousands more: now 
"laughed with Rabelais in his easv chair" 
or pointed to Hogarth, or afterwards dwelt on 
Claude's classic scenes, or spoke with rapture 
of Raphael, and compared the women at Rome 
to figures that had walked out of his pictures, 
or visited the Oratory of Lisa, and described 
the works of Giotto and Ghirlandaio and 
Masaccio, and gave the moral of the picture 
of the Triumph of Death, where the beggars and 
the wretched invoke his dreadful dart, but the 
iich and mighty of the earth quail and shrink 
before it; and in that land of siren sights and 
sounds, saw a dance of peasant girls, and was 



charmed with lutes and gondolas, — or wan- 
dered into Germany and lost himself in the laby- 
rinths of the Harlz Forest and of the Kantean 
philosophy, and amongst the cabalistic names 
of Fichte and Schelling and Lessing, and God 
knows who. This was long after; but all the 
former while he had nerved his heart and filled 
his eyes with tears, as he hailed the rising orb 
of liberty, since quenched in darkness and in 
blood, and had kindled his affections at the 
blaze of the French Revolution, and sang for 
joy, when the towers of the Bastille and the 
proud places of the insolent and the oppressor 
fell, and would have floated his bark, freighted 
with fondest fancies, across the Atlantic wave 
with Southey and others to seek for peace and 
freedom — 

" 1 1\ Philharmonia's undivided dale ! " 
Alas! "Frailty, thy name is Ctnius .'" — 

What is become of all this mighty heap of hope, 
of thought, of learning and humanitv? It has 
ended in swallowing doses of oblivion and in 
writing paragraphs in the Courier. Such and 
SO little is the mind of man ! 

It was not to be supposed that Mr. Coleridge 

could keep on at the rate he set off. He could 
not realise all he knew or thought, and less 
could not fix his desultory ambition. Other 
stimulants supplied the place, and kept up the 
intoxicating dream, the fever and the madness 
of his early impressions. Liberty (the phi- 
losopher's and the poet's bride) had fallen a 
victim, meanwhile, to the murderous •practices 
of the hag Legitimacy. Proscribed by COUTt- 
hirelingS, too romantic for the herd of vulgar 
politicians, our enthusiast stood at bay, and at 
last turned on the pivot of a subtle casuistry 
to the Unclean side: but his discursive reason 
would not let him trammel himself into a poet- 
laureate or Stamp distributor; and he stopped, 
ere he had quite passed that well-known "bourne 
from whence no traveller returns" — and so has 
sunk into torpid, uneasy repose, tantalised bv 
useless resources, haunted by vain imaginings, 
his lips idly moving, but his heart forever still, 
or, as the shattered chords vibrate of them- 
selves, making melancholy music to the ear of 
memory! Such is the fate of genius in an age 
when, in the unequal contest with sovereign 
wrong, every man is ground to powder who is 
not either a born slave, or who does not willingly 
and at once offer up the yearnings oi humanity 
and the dictates of reason as a welcome sacrifice 
to besotted prejudice and loathsome power. 



MR. COLERIDGK 



353 



Of all Mr. Coleridge's productions, the An- 
cient Mariner is the only one that wc could 
with confidence put into any person's hands, 
on whom we wished to impress a favourable 
idea of his extraordinary powers. Let what- 
ever other objections be made to it, it is un- 
questionably a work of genius — -of wild, 
irregular, overwhelming Imagination, and has 
that rich, varied movement in the verse, which 
gives a distant idea of the lofty or changeful 
tones of Mr. Coleridge's voice. In the C'liris- 
tubel, there is one splendid passage on divided 
friendship. The Translation of Schiller's Wal 
lenstein is also a masterly production in its kind, 
faithful and spirited. Among his smaller 
pieces there are occasional bursts of pathos and 
fancy, equal to what we might expect from him; 
but these form the exception, and not the rule. 
Such, for instance, is his affecting Sonnet to the 
author of the Robbers. 

"Schiller I that hour 1 would have wish'd to die, 
If through the shudd'ring midnight I had sent 
From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, 
That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry — ■ 
That in no after-moment aught less vast 
Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout 
Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout 
From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. 

"Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! 
Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, 

Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye, 

Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! 
Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood, 
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy." 

His Tragedy, entitled Remorse, is full of 
beautiful and striking passages; but it does not 
place the author in the first rank of dramatic, 
writers. But if Mr. Coleridge's works do not 
place him in that rank, they injure instead of 
conveying a just idea of the man; for he him- 
self is certainly in the first class of general 
intellect. 

If our author's poetry is inferior to his con- 
versation, his prose is utterly abortive. Hardly 
a gleam is to be found in it of the brilliancy and 
richness of those stores of thought and language 
that he pours out incessantly, when they arc 
lost like drops of water in the ground. The 
principal work, in which he has attempted 
to embody his general views of things, is the 
Friend, of which, though it contains some noble 
passages and finetrainsof thought, prolixity and 
obscurity are the most frequent characteristics. 

No two persons can be conceived more 
opposite in character or genius than the sub- 



ject of the present and of the preceding sketch. 
Mr. Godwin, with less natural capacity and 
with fewer acquired advantages, by concen- 
trating his mind on some given object, and 
doing what he had to do with all his might, 
has accomplished much, and will leave more 
than one monument of a powerful intellect 
behind him; Mr. Coleridge, by dissipating his, 
and dallying with every subject by turns, has 
done little or nothing to justify to the world 
or to posterity the high opinion which all who 
have ever heard him converse, or known him 
intimately, with one accord entertain of him. 
Mr. Godwin's faculties have kept at home, and 
plied their task in the workshop of the brain, 
diligently and effectually: Mr. Coleridge's 
have gossiped away their time, and gadded 
about from house to house, as if life's business 
were to melt the hours in listless talk. Mr. 
Godwin is intent on a subject, only as it con- 
cerns himself and his reputation; he works it 
out as a matter of duty, and discards from 
his mind whatever does not forward his main 
object as impertinent and vain. 

Mr. Coleridge, on the other hand, delights 
in nothing but episodes and digressions, 
neglects whatever he undertakes to perform, 
and can act only on spontaneous impulses 
without object or method. "lie cannot be 
constrained by mastery." While he should be 
occupied with a given pursuit, he is thinking 
of a thousand other things: a thousand tastes, 
a thousand objects tempt him, and distract his 
mind, which keeps open house, and entertains 
all comers; and after being fatigued and 
amused with morning calls from idle visitors, 
he finds the day consumed and its business 
unconcluded. Mr. Godwin, on the contrary, 
is somewhat exclusive and unsocial in his hab- 
its of mind, entertains no company but what 
he gives his whole time and attention to, and 
wisely writes over the doors of his understand- 
ing, his fancy, and his senses — "No admittance 
except on business." He has none of that fas- 
tidious refinement and false delicacy, which 
might lead him to balance between the endless 
variety of modern attainments. He does not 
throw away his life (nor a single half hour of it) 
in adjusting the claims of different accom- 
plishments, and in choosing between them or 
making himself master of them all. He sets 
about his task (whatever it may be), and goes 
through it with spirit and fortitude. He has 
the happiness to think an author the greatest 
character in the world, and himself the greatest 
author in it. 



354 



LEIGH HUNT 



Mr. Coleridge, in writing an harmonious 
Stanza, would stop to consider whether there 
was not more grace and beauty in a Pas de 
tr(>is, and would not proceed till he had re- 
solved this question by B chain of metaphysical 
reasoning without end. Not so Mr. Godwin. 
That is best to him, which he can do best. He 
docs not waste himself in vain aspirations 
and effeminate sympathies. He is blind, deaf, 
insensible to all but the trump of Fame. Plays, 
operas, painting, music, ball-rooms, wealth, 
fashion, titles, lords, ladies, touch him not. 
All these are no more to him than to the magi- 
cian in his cell, and he writes on to the end of the 
chapter through good report and evil report. 
Pingo in eternitatem is his motto. He neither 
envies DOT admires what others are, but is 
contented to be what he is, and strives to ilo the 
utmost he can. Mr. Coleridge has flirted with 
the Muses as with a set of mistresses: Mr. 
Godwin has been married twice, to Reason 
and to Fancy, and has to boast no short-lived 
progeny by each. 

So to speak, he has vatves belonging to his 
mind, to regulate the quantity of gas admitted 
into it, so that like the bare, unsightly, but well- 
compacted steam-vessel, it cuts its liquid way, 
and arrives at its promised end: while Mr. 
Coleridge's bark, "taught with the little nauti- 
lus to sail," the sport of every breath, dancing 
to every wave, 

"Youth at its prow, and Pleasure at its helm," 

flutters its gaudy pennons in the air, glitters in 
the sun, but we wait in vain to hear of its arrival 
in the destined harbour. Mr. Godwin, with 
less variety ami vividness, with less subtlety 
ami susceptibility both of thought and feeling, 
has hail firmer nerves, a more determined pur- 
pose, a more comprehensive grasp of his sub- 
ject ; and the results are as we find them. 
Each has met with his reward: for justice 
has, after all, been done to the pretensions 
of each; and we must, in all cases, use means 
to ends ! 

It was a misfortune to any man of talent to 
be born in the latter end of the last century. 
Genius Stopped the way of Legitimacy, and 
therefore it was to be abated, crushed, or set 
aside as a nuisance. The spirit oi the mon- 
archy was at variance with the spirit of the age. 
The flame of liberty, the light of intellect, was 
to he extinguished wi^Ji the sword or with 
slander, whose edge is sharper than the sword. 
The war between power ami reason was carried 
on bv the first of these abroad, by the last at 



home. No quarter was given (then or now) 
by the Government-critics, the authorised cen- 
sors of the press, to those who followed the 
dictates of independence, who Listened to the 
voice of the tempter Fancy, Instead of gath- 
ering fruits ami flowers, immortal fruits and 
amaranthine Bowers, they soon found them- 
selves beset not only by a host of prejudices, 
but assailed with all the engines of power: by 
nicknames, by lies, by all the arts of malice, 
interest, and hypocrisy, without the possibility 
of their defending themselves "from the pelting 
oi the pitiless storm," that poured down upon 
them from the strongholds of corruption and 
authority. 

The philosophers, the dry abstract reason- 
ers, submitted to this reverse pretty well, and 
armed themselves with patience "as with triple 
steel," to bear discomfiture, persecution, and 
disgrace. But the poets, the creatures of 
sympathy, could not stand the frowns both 
of king and people. They did not like to be 
shut out when places and pensions, when the 
critic's praises, and the laurel wreath were 
about to be distributed. They did not stom- 
ach being sent to Coventry, and Mr. Coleridge 
sounded a retreat for them by the help of 
casuistry and a musical voice.- — "His words 
were hollow, but they pleased the ear" of his 
friends oi the bake School, who turned back 
disgusted and panic-struck from the dry des- 
ert oi unpopularity, like Hassan the camel- 
driver, 

" And curs'd the hour, and curs'd the luckless day, 
When first from Shins' walls they bent their way." 

They are safely enclosed there. But Mr. 
Coleridge did nor enter with them; pitching 
his tent upon the barren waste without, and 
having no abiding place nor city of refuge! 



LEIGH HUNT (i 784-1859) 

THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES • 

In the time of the Norman reign in Sicily, 
a vessel bound from that island for Smyrna 
was driven by a westerly wind upon the island 
of Cos. The crew did not know where they 
were, though they had often visited the island; 
for the trading towns lay in other quarters, and 



1 Compare the other versions of this story, one by 
M.uuleville (p. o, above\ the other by William Morris 
: Poetry, p. 551), 






THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES 



355 



they saw nothing before them but woods and 
solitudes. They found, however, a comfort- 
able harbour; and the wind having fallen in 
the night, they went on shore next morning for 
water. The country proved as solitary as they 
thought it; which was the more extraordinary, 
inasmuch as it was very luxuriant, full of wild 
figs and grapes, with a rich uneven ground, 
and stocked with goats and other animals, 
who fled whenever they appeared. The bees 
were remarkably numerous; so that the wild 
honey, fruits, and delicious water, especially 
one spring which fell into a beautiful marble 
basin, made them more and more wonder, 
at every step, that they could see no human 
inhabitants. 

Thus idling about and wondering, stretching 
themselves now and then among the wild thyme 
and grass, and now getting up to look at some 
specially fertile place which another called them 
to see, and which they thought might be turned 
to fine trading purpose, they came upon a 
mound covered with trees, which looked into a 
flat, wide lawn of rank grass, with a house at 
the end of it. They crept nearer towards the 
house along the mound, still continuing among 
the trees, for fear they were trespassing at last 
upon somebody's property. It had a large 
garden wall at the back, as much covered with 
ivy as if it had been built of it. Fruit-trees 
looked over the wall with an unpruncd thick- 
ness; and neither at the back nor front of the 
house were there any signs of humanity. It 
was an ancient marble building, where glass 
was not to be expected in the windows; but 
it was much dilapidated, and the grass grew up 
over the steps. They listened again and again; 
but nothing was to be heard like a sound of 
men; nor scarcely of anything else. There was 
an intense noonday silence. Only the hares 
made a rustling noise as they ran about the 
long hiding grass. The house looked like the 
tomb of human nature amidst the vitality of 
earth. 

"Did you see?" said one of the crew, turning 
pale, and hastening to go. "See what?" said 
the others. "What looked out of the window." 
They all turned their faces towards the house, 
but saw nothing. Upon this they laughed at 
their companion, who persisted, however, with 
great earnestness, and with great reluctance at 
stopping, to say that he saw a strange, hideous 
kind of face look out of the window. " Let us 
go, sir," said he, to the Captain; — " for I tell 
ye what: I know this place now: and you, 
Signor Gualtier," continued he, turning to a 



young man, "may now follow that adventure 
I have often heard you wish to be engaged in." 
The crew turned pale, and Gualtier among 
them. "Yes," added the man, "we are fallen 
upon the enchanted part of the island of Cos, 
where the daughter of — Hush ! Look there !" 
They turned their faces again, and beheld the 
head of a large serpent looking out of the win- 
dow. Its eyes were direct upon them; and 
stretching out of the window, it lifted back its 
head with little sharp jerks like a fowl; and 
so stood keenly gazing. 

The terrified sailors would have begun to 
depart quicklier than they did, had not fear 
itself made them move slowly. Their legs 
seemed melting from under them. Gualtier 
tried to rally his voice. "They say," said he, 
"it is a gentle creature. The hares that feed 
right in front of the house are a proof of it ; — 
let us all stay." The others shook their heads, 
and spoke in whispers, still continuing to de- 
scend the mound as well as they could. "There 
is something unnatural in that very thing," 
said the Captain: "but we will wait for you in 
the vessel, if you stay. We will, by St. Frmo." 
The Captain had not supposed that Gualtier 
would stay an instant; but seeing him linger 
more than the rest, he added the oath in ques- 
tion, and in the meantime was hastening with 
the others to get away. The truth is, Gualtier 
was, in one respect, more frightened than any 
of them. His legs were more rooted to the 
spot. But the same force of imagination that 
helped to detain him, enabled him to muster 
up courage beyond those who found their will 
more powerful: and in the midst of his terror 
he could not help thinking what a fine adven- 
ture this would be to tell in Salerno, even if he 
did but conceal himself a little, and stay a few 
minutes longer than the rest. The thought, 
however, had hardly come upon him, when it 
was succeeded by a fear still more lively; and 
he was preparing to follow the others with all 
the expedition he could contrive, when a fierce 
rustling took place in the trees behind him, and 
in an instant the serpent's head was at his feet. 
Gualtier's brain as well as heart seemed to 
sicken, as he thought the monstrous object 
scented him like a bear; but despair coming in 
aid of a courage naturally fanciful and chival- 
rous, he bent his eyes more steadily, and found 
the huge jaws and fangs not only abstaining 
from hurting him, but crouching and fawning 
at his feet like a spaniel. At the same time 
he called to mind the old legend respecting the 
creature, and, corroborated as he now saw it, 



356 



LEIGH HUNT 



he ejaculated with good firmness, "In the name 
of God and his saints, what art thou?" 

"Hast thou not heard of me?" answered 
the serpent in a voice whose singular human 
slenderness made it seem the more horrible. 
"1 guess who thou art," answered Cualtier; — 
"the fearful thing in the island of Cos." 

"I am that loathly thing," replied the ser- 
pent; "once not so." And Cualtier thought 
that its voice trembled sorrowfully. 

The monster told Gualtier that what was said 
of her was true; that she had been a serpent 
hundreds of years, feeling old age and renewing 
her youth at the end of each century; that it 
was a curse of Diana's which had changed her; 
and that she was never to resume a human form, 
till somebody was found kind and bold enough 
to kiss her on the mouth. As she spoke this 
word, she raised her erest, and sparkled so with 
her fiery green eyes, dilating at the same time 
tin' corners of her jaws, that the young man 
thrilled through his very scalp, lie stepped 
back, with a look of the utmost horror and 
loathing. The creature gave a sharp groan 
inwardly, and after rolling her neck frantically 
on the ground, withdrew a little back likewise, 
and seemed to be looking another way. Cual- 
tier heard two or three little sounds as of a per- 
son weeping piteously, vet trying to subdue its 
voice; and looking with breathless curiosity, 
he saw the side of the loathly creature's face 
bathed in tears. 

"Why speakest thou, lady," said he, "if 
lady thou art, of the curse of the false goddess 
Diana, who never was, or only a devil? I 
cannot kiss thee," — and he shuddered with 
a horrible shudder as he spoke, "but 1 will 
bless thee in the name of the true Cod, and even 
mark thee with his cross." 

The serpent shook her head mournfully, 
still keeping it turned round. She then faced 
him again, hanging her head in a dreary and 
desponding manner. "Thou knowest not," 
said she, "what 1 know. Diana both was anil 
never was; and there are many other things on 
earth which are and yet are not. Thou canst 
not comprehend it, even though thou art 
kind. But the heavens alter not, neither the 
sun nor the strength of nature; and if thou 
wert kinder, 1 should be as 1 once was, happy 
and human. Suffice it, that nothing can change 
me but what 1 said." 

"Why wert thou changed, thou fearful and 
mysterious thing?" said Cualtier. 

"Because 1 denied Diana, as thou dost," 
answered the serpent; "and it was pronounced 



an awful crime in me, though it is none in thee; 
and I was to be made a thing loathsome in 
men's eyes. Let me not catch thine eye, I 
beseech thee; but go thy way and be safe: 
for I feel a cruel thought coming on me, which 
will shake my innermost soul, though it shall 
not harm thee. But I could make thee suffer 
for the pleasure of seeing thine anguish; even 
as some tyrants do: and is not that dreadful?" 
Ami the monster openly shed tears, and sobbed. 

There was something in this mixture of 
avowed cruelty, and weeping contradiction to 
it, which made Cualtier remain in spite of 
himself. But fear was still uppermost in his 
mind when he looked upon the mouth that was 
to be kissed; ami he held fast round the tree 
with one hand, ami his sword as fast in the 
other, watching the movements of her neck as 
he conversed. "How did thy father, the sage 
Hippocrates," asked he, "suffer thee to come 
to this?" "My father," replied she, "sage 
and good as he was, was but a Creek mortal; 
and the great Virgin was a worshipped Coddcss. 
I prav thee, go." She uttered the last word in 
a tone of loud anguish; but the very horror of 
it made Cualtier hesitate, and he said, "How 
can I know that it is not thy destiny to 
deceive the merciful into this horrible kiss, 
that then and then only thou mayest devour 
them?" 

But the serpent rose higher at this, and 
looking around loftily, said, in a mild and 
majestic tone of voice, "O ye green and happy 
woods, breathing like sleep! O safe and 
quiet population of these leafy places, dying 
brief deaths! O sea! O earth! O heavens, 
never uttering syllable to man ! Is there no 
way to make better known the meaning of your 
gentle silence, of your long basking pleasures 
and brief pains? And must the want of what 
is beautiful and kind from others, ever remain 
different from what is beautiful and kind in 
itself? And must form obscure essence; ami 
human confidence in good from within never 
be bolder than suspicion of evil from without? 
ye large-looking and grand benignities of 
creation, is it that we are atoms in a dream, or 
that your largeness and benignity are in those 
only who see them, and that it is for us to hang 
iner ye till we wake you into a voice with our 
kisses? 1 yearn to be made beautiful by one 
kind action, and beauty itself will not believe 
me !" 

Cualtier, though not a foolish youth, under- 
stood little or nothing of this mystic apostrophe; 
but something made him bear in mind, and 



THOMAS DE QUINCKY 



;57 



really incline to believe, that it was a trans- 
formed woman speaking to him; and he was 
making a violent internal effort to conquer his 
repugnance to the kiss, when some hares, 
starting from him as they passed, ran and 
Cowered behind the folds of the monster: 
and she stooped her head, and licked them. 
"By Christ," exclaimed he, "whom the wormy 
grave gathered into its arms to save us from our 
corruptions, I will do this thing; so may he 
have mercy on my soul, whether 1 live or die: 
for the very hares take refuge in her shadow." 
And shuddering and shutting his eyes, he put 
his mouth out for her to meet; and he seemed 
to feci, in his blindness, that dreadful mouth 
approaching; and he made the sign of the 
cross; and he murmured internally the name 
of him who cast seven devils out of Mary 
Magdalen, that afterwards anointed his feet; 
and in the midst of his courageous agony he 
felt a small mouth fast and warm upon his, and 
a hand about his neck, and another on his left 
hand; and opening his eyes, he dropped them 
upon two of the sweetest that ever looked into 
the eye of man. But the hares fled; for they 
had loved the serpent, but knew not the beau- 
tiful human being. 

Great was the fame of Gualticr, not only 
throughout the Grecian islands, but on both 
continents; and most of all in Sicily, where 
every one of his countrymen thought he had 
had a hand in the enterprise, for being born on 
the same soil. The Captain and his crew never 
came again; for, alas! they had gone off with- 
out waiting as they promised. But Tanned, 
Prince of Salerno, came himself with a knightly 
train to see Gualticr, who lived with his lady 
in the same place, all her past sufferings ap- 
pearing as nothing to her before a month of 
love; and even sorrowful habit had endeared 
it to her. Tancred, and his knights and 
learned clerks, came in a noble ship, every oar 
having a painted scutcheon over the rowlock; 
and Gualticr and his lady feasted them nobly, 
and drank to them amidst music in cups of 
Hippocras — that knightly liquor afterwards 
so renowned, which she retained the secret of 
making from her sage father, whose name it 
bore. And when King Tancred, with a gentle 
gravity in the midst of his mirth, expressed a 
hope that the beautiful lady no longer wor- 
shipped Diana, Gualticr said, "No, indeed, 
sir;" and she looked in Gualtier's face, as she 
sat next him, with the sweetest look in the 
world, as who should say, "No, indeed: — I 
worship thee and thy kind heart." 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859) 

From CONFKSSIONS OF AN ENGLISH 
OPIUM-EATER 

INTRODUCTION TO THE PAINS OP 
OPIUM 

If any man, poor or rich, were to say that he 
would tell us what had been the happiest day 
in his life, and the why and the wherefore, 1 
suppose that we should all cry out, Hear him! 
hear him ! As to the happiest day, that must he 
very difficult for any wise man to name; be- 
cause any event, that could occupy so distin- 
guished a place in a man's retrospect of his life, 
or be entitled to have shed a special felicity on 
anyone day, ought to be of such an enduring 
character, as that (accidents apart) it should 
have continued to shed the same felicity, or 
one not distinguishably less, on many years 
together. To the happiest lustrum, however, 
or even to the happiest \car, it may be allowed 
to any man to point without discountenance 
from wisdom. This year, in my case, reader, 
was the one which we have now reached; 
though it stood, 1 confess, as a parenthesis 
between years of a gloomier character. It was 
a year of brilliant water (to speak after the 
manner of jewellers), set, as it were, and in- 
sulated, in the gloom and cloudy melancholy 
of opium. Strange as it may sound, 1 had a 
little before this time descended suddenly, and 
without any considerable effort, from three 
hundred and twenty grains of opium (that is, 
eight thousand drops of laudanum) per day, 
(o forty grains, or one eighth part. Instanta 
neously, and as if by magic, the cloud of pro- 
foundest melancholy which rested upon my 
brain, like some black vapours that I have seen 
roll away from the summits of mountains, 
drew off in one day; passed off with its murky 
banners as simultaneously as a ship that has 
been stranded, and is floated off by a spring 
tide, — 

That movcth altogether, if it move at all. 

Now, then, I was again happy: I now took 
only one thousand drops of laudanum per day, 
— and what was that? A latter spring had 
come to close up the season of youth : my brain 
performed its functions as healthily as ever 
before. I read Kant again, and again I under 
stood him, or fancied that I did. Again my 
feelings of pleasure expanded themselves to ail 
around me; and, if any man from Oxford or 



358 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY 



Cambridge, or from neither, had been announced 
to me in my unpretending cottage, I should have 
welcomed him with as sumptuous a reception as 
so poor a man could offer. Whatever else was 
wanting to a wise man's happiness, of laudanum 
I would have given him as much as he wished, 
and in a golden cup. And, by the way, now 
that I speak of giving laudanum away, I re- 
member, about this time, a little incident, which 
I mention, because, trifling as it was, the reader 
will soon meet it again in my dreams, which it 
influenced more tearfully than could be im- 
agined. One day a Malay knocked at my door. 
What business a Malay could have to transact 
amongst English mountains, I cannot conjec- 
ture; but possibly he was on his road to a 
seaport about forty miles distant. 

The servant who opened the door to him 
was a young girl, born and bred amongst the 
mountains, who had never seen an Asiatic 
dress of any sort: his turban, therefore, con- 
founded her not a little; and as it turned out 
that his attainments in English were exactly 
of the same extent as hers in the Malay, there 
seemed to be an impassable gulf fixed between 
all communication of ideas, if either party had 
happened to possess any. In this dilemma, 
the girl, recollecting the reputed learning of her 
master (and, doubtless, giving me credit for a 
knowledge of all the languages of the earth, 
besides, perhaps, a few of the lunar ones), 
came and gave me to understand that there 
was a sort of demon below, whom she clearly 
imagined that my art could exorcise from 
the house. I did not immediately go down ; but 
when I did, the group which presented itself, 
arranged as it was by accident, though not very 
elaborate, took hold of my fancy and my eye 
in a way that none of the statuesque attitudes ex- 
hibited in the ballets at the opera-house, though 
so ostentatiously complex, had ever done. 
In a cottage kitchen, but panelled on the wall 
with dark wood, that from age and rubbing 
resembled oak, and looking more like a rus- 
tic hall of entrance than a kitchen, stood the 
Malay, his turban and loose trousers of dingy 
white relieved upon the dark panelling; he 
had placed himself nearer to the girl than she 
seemed to relish, though her native spirit of 
mountain intrepidity contended with the feeling 
of simple awe which her countenance expressed, 
as she gazed upon the tiger-cat before her. 
And a more striking picture there could not be 
imagined, than the beautiful English face of the 
girl, and its exquisite fairness, together with 
her erect and independent attitude, contrasted 



with the sallow and bilious skin of the Malay, 
enamelled or veneered with mahogany by 
marine air, his small, fierce, restless eyes, thin 
lips, slavish gestures, and adorations. Half 
hidden by the ferocious-looking Malay, was 
a little child from a neighbouring cottage, who 
had crept in after him, and was now in the act 
of reverting its head and gazing upwards 
at the turban and the fiery eyes beneath it, 
whilst with one hand he caught at the dress of 
the young woman for protection. 

My knowledge of the Oriental tongues is not 
remarkably extensive, being, indeed, confined to 
two words, — the Arabic word for barley, and 
the Turkish for opium (madjoon), which I have 
learnt from Anastasius. And, as I had neither 
a Malay dictionary, nor even Adelung's Miih- 
ridates, which might have helped me to a few 
words, I addressed him in some lines from 
the Iliad; considering that, of such language as 
I possessed, the Greek, in point of longitude, 
came geographically nearest to an Oriental 
one. He worshipped me in a devout manner, 
and replied in what I suppose was Malay. In 
this way I saved my reputation with my neigh- 
bours ; for the Malay had no means of betraying 
the secret. He lay down upon the floor for about 
an hour, and then pursued his journey. On 
his departure, I presented him with a piece of 
opium. To him, as an Orientalist, I concluded 
that opium must be familiar, and the expression 
of his face convinced me that it was. Never- 
theless, I was struck with some little consterna- 
tion when I saw him suddenly raise his hand 
to his mouth, and (in the school-boy -phrase) 
bolt the whole, divided into three pieces, at 
one mouthful. The quantity was enough 
to kill three dragoons and their horses, and I 
felt some alarm for the poor creature ; but what 
could be done? I had given him the opium in 
compassion for his solitary life, on recollecting 
that, if he had travelled on foot from London, 
it must be nearly three weeks since he could 
have exchanged a thought with any human 
being. I could not think of violating the laws 
of hospitality by having him seized and drenched 
with an emetic, and thus frightening him into 
a notion that we were going to sacrifice him to 
some English idol. No; there was clearly no 
help for it. He took his leave, and for some 
days I felt anxious; but, as I never heard of any 
Malay being found dead, I became convinced 
that he was used to opium, and that I must have 
done him the service I designed, by giving him 
one night of respite from the pains of wander- 
ing. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 



359 



This incident I have digressed to mention, 
because this Malay (partly from the picturesque 
exhibition he assisted to frame, partly from the 
anxiety I connected with his image for some 
days) fastened afterwards upon my dreams, 
and brought other Malays with him worse than 
himself, that ran "a-muck" at me, and led me 
into a world of troubles. But, to quit this 
episode, and to return to my intercalary year 
of happiness. I have said already, that on a 
subject so important to us all as happiness, we 
should listen with pleasure to any man's ex- 
perience or experiments, even though he were 
but a ploughboy, who cannot be supposed to 
have ploughed very deep in such an intractable 
soil as that of human pains and pleasures, or 
to have conducted his researches upon any very 
enlightened principles. But I, who have taken 
happiness, both in a solid and a liquid shape, 
both boiled and unboiled, both East India 
and Turkey, — who have conducted my ex- 
periments upon this interesting subject with a 
sort of galvanic battery, — and have, for the 
general benefit of the world, inoculated myself, 
as it were, with the poison of eight hundred 
drops of laudanum per day (just for the same 
reason as a French surgeon inoculated himself 
lately with a cancer, — an English one, twenty 
years ago, with plague, — and a third, I 
know not of what nation, with hydrophobia), — 
I, it will be admitted, must surely know what 
happiness is, if anybody does. And therefore 
I will here lay down an analysis of happiness; 
and, as the most interesting mode of com- 
municating it, I will give it, not didactically, 
but wrapt up and involved in a picture of one 
evening, as I spent every evening during the 
intercalary year when laudanum, though taken 
daily, was to me no more than the elixir of 
pleasure. This done, I shall quit the subject 
of happiness altogether, and pass to a very 
different one, — the pains of opium. 

Let there be a cottage, standing in a valley, 
eighteen miles from any town; no spacious 
valley, but about two miles long by three 
quarters of a mile in average width, — the 
benefit of which provision is, that all the fam- 
ilies resident within its circuit will compose, 
as it were, one larger household, personally 
familiar to your eye, and more or less interest- 
ing to your affections. Let the mountains be 
real mountains, between three and four thou- 
sand feet high, and the cottage a real cottage, 
not (as a witty author has it) "a cottage with 
a double coach-house"; let it be, in fact (for 
I must abide by the actual scene), a white 



cottage, embowered with flowering shrubs, so 
chosen as to unfold a succession of flowers upon 
the walls, and clustering around the windows, 
through all the months of spring, summer, and 
autumn; beginning, in fact, with May roses, 
and ending with jasmine. Let it, however, 
not be spring, nor summer, nor autumn; but 
winter, in its sternest shape. This is a most 
important point in the science of happiness. 
And I am surprised to see people overlook it, 
and think it matter of congratulation that 
winter is going, or, if coming, is not likely to 
be a severe one. On the contrary, I put up 
a petition, annually, for as much snow, hail, 
frost, or storm of one kind or other, as the skies 
can possibly afford us. Surely everybody is 
aware of the divine pleasures which attend 
a winter fireside, — candles at four o'clock, 
warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, 
shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample 
draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain 
are raging audibly without. 

And at the doors and windows seem to call 
As heaven and earth they would together mell; 
Yet the least entrance find they none at all; 
Whence sweeter grows our rest secure in massy hall. 
— Castle of Indolence. 

All these are items in the description of a 
winter evening which must surely be familiar 
to everybody born in a high latitude. And it 
is evident that most of these delicacies, like ice- 
cream, require a very low temperature of the 
atmosphere to produce them : they are fruits 
which cannot be ripened without weather stormy 
or inclement, in some way or other. I am not 
"particular," as people say, whether it be snow, 
or black frost, or wind so strong that (as 

Mr. says) "you may lean your back against 

it like a post." I can put up even with rain, pro- 
vided that it rains cats and dogs ; but something 
of the sort I must have; and if I have not, I 
think myself in a manner ill used: for why am 
I called on to pay so heavily for winter, in coals, 
and candles, and various privations that will 
occur even to gentlemen, if I am not to have 
the article good of its kind? No: a Canadian 
winter, for my money; or a Russian one, where 
every man is but a co-proprietor with the north 
wind in the fee-simple of his own ears. Indeed, 
so great an epicure am I in this matter, that I 
cannot relish a winter night fully, if it be much 
past St. Thomas' day, and have degenerated 
into disgusting tendencies to vernal appear- 
ances ; — no, it must be divided by a thick wall 



3 6 ° 



THOMAS DK QUINCEY 



of dark nights from all return <>f light and 
sunshine. From the latter weeks of October 
to Christmas-eve, therefore, is the period dur- 
ing which happiness is in season, which, in my 

judgment, enters the room with the tea tray; 
lor tea, though ridiculed by those who arc 
naturally of coarse nerves, or are become so 
from wine drinking, and arc not susceptible 
of influence from so refined a stimulant, will 

always be the favourite beverage of the 

intellectual; and, for my part, 1 would have 
joined Dr. |ohnson in a helium internet ininn 
againsl Jonas Hanway, or any other im- 
pious person who should presume tO dispar- 
age it. Hut here, to save myself the trouble 
oi tOO much verbal description, 1 will intro- 
duce a painter, and give him directions for 
the rest of the picture. Painters do not like 
white cottages, unless a good deal weather- 
stained; but, as the reader now understands 
that it is a winter night, his services will 
not be required except for the inside ol the 
house. 

Taint me, then, a room seventeen feet by 
twelve, and not more than seven and a half 
feet high. This, reader, is somewhat am 
biliously Styled, in my family, the drawing- 
room; but being contrived "a double debt to 
pay," it is also, and more justly, termed the 
library; lor it happens that books are the only 
article of property in which 1 am richer than 
inv neighbours. Of these 1 have about li\e 
thousand, collected gradually since my eigh- 
teenth year. Therefore, painter, put as many 
as VOU Can into this room. Make it populous 
with books, and, furthermore, paint me a good 
fire; and furniture plain and modest, befitting 

the unpretending cottage of a scholar. And 

near the lire painl me a lea table; and (as il is 
clear that no creature Can come to see one, such 
a stormy night ) place only two cups and saucers 
on the tea tray; and, if you know how to paint 
such a thing symbolic ally, or otherwise, painl 
me an eternal tea pot, eternal a f><irle ante, 
and a parte past; for 1 usually drink tea from 
eight o'clock at night to four in the morning. 
And, as it is very unpleasant to make tea, or to 
pour it out for one's self, painl me a lovely 
young woman, sitting at the table. Painl her 
arms like Aurora's, and her smiles like Hebe's; 
but no, dear M., no! even in jest let me in- 
sinuate- that thy power to illuminate my cottage 
rests upon a tenure so perishable as mere per- 
sonal beauty; or that the witchcraft of angelic 
smiles lies within the empire of any earthly 
pencil. Pass, then, mv rood painter, to some- 



thing more within its power; and the next 
article brought forward should naturally be 
myself, a picture of the ( )pium eater, with 
his "little golden receptacle of the pernicious 
drug" lying beside him on the table. As to the 
opium, I have- no objection to see a picture of 
///<//, though I would rather see the original; 
you may paint it, if you choose; but I apprise 
you that no "little" receptacle would, even in 
iNiO, answer my purpose, who was at a distance 
from the "stately I'anlheon," and all druggists 
(mortal or otherwise). No: you may as well 
paint the real receptacle, which was not of 
gold, but of glass, and as much like- a wine 
decanter as possible. Into this you may put 
a quart of ruby coloured laudanum; that, and a 
book of German metaphysics placed by its 
side, will sufficiently attest my being in the 
neighbourhood ; but as to myself, there 1 demur. 
1 admit that, naturally, 1 ought to occupy the 
foreground of the picture; that being the hero 
of the piece, or (if you choose) the criminal at 
the bar, mv body should be had into court. 
This seems reasonable; but why should I 
confess, on (his point, to a painter? or, why 
Confess at all? If the public (into whose private 
ear I am Confidentially whispering my confes- 
sions, and not into any painter's) should chance 
to have framed some agreeable picture for itself 
of the Opium-eater's exterior, should have- 
ascribed to him, romantically, an elegant person, 
or a handsome face, why should I barbarously 
tear from it so pleasing a delusion, pleasing 
both to the public and to me? No: paint me, 
if at all, according to your own fancy; and, as 
a painter's fancy should teem with beautiful 
creations, I cannot fail, in that way, to be a 
gainer. And now, reader, we have run 
through all the categories of my condition, 
as it stood about [8l6 i S 1 7, up to the mid- 
dle of which latter year 1 judge myself to 
have been a happy man; and the elements 
of that happiness 1 have endeavoured to 
place before you, in the- above sketch of 
the interior of a scholar's library, in a 
cottage- among the mountains, on a stormy 
winter evening. 

Hut now fa re well, a long farewell, to happiness, 
winter or summer! farewell to smiles and 
laughter! farewell to peace- of mind! fare-well 
to hope and to tranquil dreams, and to the 
blessed consolations of sleep! For more 
than three years and a half I am sum- 
moned away from these; 1 am now arrived 
at an Iliad of woes: for 1 have now to 
record 






CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 



361 



THE PAINS OF OPIUM 

I now pass to what is the main subject of 
these latter confessions, to the history and 
journal of what took place in my dreams; 
for these were the immediate and proximate 
cause of my acutest suffering. 

The first notice I had of any important 
change going on in this part of my physical 
economy, was from the re-awaking of a state 
of eye generally incident to childhood, or 
exalted states of irritability. I know not 
whether my reader is aware that many children, 
perhaps most, have a power of painting, as it 
were, upon the darkness, all sorts of phantoms: 
in some that power is simply a mechanic affec- 
tion of the eye; others have a voluntary or semi- 
voluntary power to dismiss or summon them; 
or, as a child once said to me, when I questioned 
him on this matter, "I can tell them to go, and 
they go; but sometimes they come when I don't 
tell them to come." Whereupon I told him 
that he had almost as unlimited a command 
over apparitions as a Roman centurion over 
his soldiers. In the middle of 181 7, I think 
it was, that this faculty became positively 
distressing to me: at night, when I lay awake 
in bed, vast processions passed along in mourn- 
ful pomp; friezes of never-ending stories, that 
to my feelings were as sad and solemn as if 
they were stories drawn from times before 
(Edipus or Priam, before Tyre, before Memphis. 
And, at the same time, a corresponding change 
took place in my dreams; a theatre seemed 
suddenly opened and lighted up within my brain, 
which presented, nightly, spectacles of more 
than earthly splendour. And the four following 
facts may be mentioned, as noticeable at this time : 

I. That, as the creative state of the eye 
increased, a sympathy seemed to arise between 
the waking and the dreaming states of the brain 
in one point, — that whatsoever I happened 
to call up and to trace by a voluntary act upon 
the darkness was very apt to transfer itself to 
my dreams; so that I feared to exercise this 
faculty; for, as Midas turned all things to gold, 
that yet baffled his hopes and defrauded his 
human desires, so whatsoever things capable 
of being visually represented I did but think of 
in the darkness, immediately shaped themselves 
into phantoms of the eye; and, by a process 
apparently no less inevitable, when thus once 
traced in faint and visionary colours, like writings 
in sympathetic ink, they were drawn out, by 
the fierce chemistry of my dreams, into insuf- 
ferable splendour that fretted my heart. 



II. For this, and all other changes in my 
dreams, were accompanied by deep-seated 
anxiety and gloomy melancholy, such as are 
wholly incommunicable by words. I seemed 
every night to descend — not -metaphorically, 
but literally to descend — into chasms and 
sunless abysses, depths below depths, from 
which it seemed hopeless that I could ever re- 
ascend. Nor did I, by waking, feel that I had 
re-ascended. This I do not dwell upon ; because 
the state of gloom which attended these gor- 
geous spectacles, amounting at last to utter 
darkness, as of some suicidal despondency, 
cannot be approached by words. 

III. The sense of space, and in the end the 
sense of time, were both powerfully affected. 
Buildings, landscapes, etc., were exhibited in 
proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not 
fitted to receive. Space swelled, and was 
amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity. 
This, however, did not disturb me so much 
as the vast expansion of time. I sometimes 
seemed to have lived for seventy or one hundred 
years in one night; nay, sometimes had feelings 
representative of a millennium, passed in that 
time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the 
limits of any human experience. 

IV. The minutest incidents of childhood, or 
forgotten scenes of later years, were often 
revived. I could not be said to recollect 
them; for if I had been told of them when 
waking, I should not have been able to ac- 
knowledge them as parts of my past experi- 
ence. But placed as they were before me, in 
dreams like intuitions, and clothed in all their 
evanescent circumstances and accompanying 
feelings, I recognised them instantaneously. I 
was once told by a near relative of mine, that 
having in her childhood fallen into a river, and 
being on the very verge of death but for the 
critical assistance which reached her, she saw 
in a moment her whole life, in its minutest 
incidents, arrayed before her simultaneously as 
in a mirror; and she had a faculty developed 
as suddenly for comprehending the whole and 
every part. This, from some opium experi- 
ences of mine, I can believe; I have, indeed, 
seen the same thing asserted twice in modern 
books, and accompanied by a remark which I 
am convinced is true, namely, that the dread 
book of account, which the Scriptures speak 
of, is, in fact, the mind of each individual. 
Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is 
no such thing as forgetting possible to the 
mind; a thousand accidents may and will 
interpose a veil between our present conscious- 



362 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY 



ness and the secret inscriptions on the mind. 
Accidents of the same sort will also rend away 
this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, 
the inscription remains forever; just as the 
stars seem to withdraw before the common 
light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know 
that it is the light which is drawn over them 
as a veil; and that they are waiting to be re- 
vealed, when the obscuring daylight shall have 
withdrawn. 

Having noticed these four facts as memor- 
ably distinguishing my dreams from those 
of health, I shall now cite a case illus- 
trative of the first fact; and shall then 
cite any others that I remember, either in 
their chronological order, or any other that 
may give them more effect as pictures to the 
reader. 

I had been in youth, and even since, for 
occasional amusement, a great reader of Livy, 
whom I confess that I prefer, both for style 
and matter, to any other of the Roman his- 
torians; and I had often felt as most solemn 
and appalling sounds, and most emphatically 
representative of the majesty of the Roman 
people, the two words so often occurring in 
Livy — Consul Romanus; especially when the 
consul is introduced in his military character. 
I mean to say, that the words king, sultan, 
regent, etc., or any other titles of those who 
embody in their own persons the collective 
majesty of a great people, had less power over 
my reverential feelings. I had, also, though no 
great reader of history, made myself minutely 
and critically familiar with one period of 
English history, namely, the period of the 
Parliamentary War, having been attracted by 
the moral grandeur of some who figured in 
that day, and by the many interesting memoirs 
which survive those unquiet times. Both these 
parts of my lighter reading, having furnished 
me often with matter of reflection, now furnished 
me with matter for my dreams. Often I used 
to see, after painting upon the blank darkness, 
a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, a crowd of 
ladies, and perhaps a festival and dances. 
And I heard it said, or I said to myself, "These 
are English ladies from the unhappy times of 
Charles I. These are the wives and daughters 
of those who met in peace, and sat at the 
same tables, and were allied by marriage or 
by blood; and yet, after a certain day in 
August, 1642, never smiled upon each other 
again, nor met but in the field of battle; and 
at Marston Moor, at Newbury, or at Naseby, 
cut asunder all ties of love by the cruel sabre, 



and washed away in blood the memory of 
ancient friendship." The ladies danced, and 
looked as lovely as the court of George IV. 
Yet I knew, even in my dream, that they had 
been in the grave for nearly two centuries. 
This pageant would suddenly dissolve; and, 
at a clapping of hands, would be heard the 
heart-quaking sound of Consul Romanus; 
and immediately came "sweeping by," in 
gorgeous paludaments, Paulus or Marius, 
girt around by a company of centurions, 
with the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, 
and followed by the alalagmos of the Roman 
legions. 

Many years ago, when I was looking over 
Piranesi's Antiquities of Rome, Mr. Coleridge, 
who was standing by, described to me a set 
of plates by that artist, called his Dreams, and 
which record the scenery of his own visions 
during the delirium of a fever. Some of them 
(I describe only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's 
account) represented vast Gothic halls; on the 
floor of which stood all sorts of engines and 
machinery, wheels, cables, pulleys, levers, 
catapults, etc., expressive of enormous power 
put forth, and resistance overcome. Creeping 
along the sides of the walls, you perceived a 
staircase; and upon it, groping his way up- 
wards, was Piranesi himself. Follow the stairs 
a little further, and you perceive it to come to 
a sudden, abrupt termination, without any bal- 
ustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him 
who had reached the extremity, except into the 
depths below. Whatever is to become ,of poor 
Piranesi, you suppose, at least, that his labours 
must in some way terminate here. But raise 
your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs 
still higher; on which again Piranesi is per- 
ceived, by this time standing on the very brink 
of the abyss. Again elevate your eye, and a 
still more aerial flight of stairs is beheld; and 
again is poor Piranesi busy on his aspiring 
labours; and so on, until the unfinished stairs 
and Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom 
of the hall. With the same power of endless 
growth and self-reproduction did my archi- 
tecture proceed in dreams. In the early stage 
of my malady, the splendours of my dreams 
were indeed chiefly architectural; and I be- 
held such pomp of cities and palaces as was 
never yet beheld by the waking eye, unless in 
the clouds. From a great modern poet I cite 
the part of a passage which describes, as an 
appearance actually beheld in the clouds, what 
in many of its circumstances I saw frequently 
in sleep: 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 



363 



The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, 
Was of a mighty city — boldly say 
A wilderness of building, sinking far 
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, 
Far sinking into splendour — without end ! 
Fabric it seemed of diamond, and of gold, 
With alabaster domes and silver spires, 
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high 
Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright, 
In avenues disposed; there towers begirt 
With battlements that on their restless fronts 
Bore stars — illumination of all gems! 
By earthly nature had the effect been wrought 
Upon the dark materials of the storm 
Now pacified; on them, and on the coves, 
And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto 
The vapours had receded — ■ taking there 
Their station under a cerulean sky, etc., etc. 

The sublime circumstance — "battlements 
that on their restless fronts bore stars" — 
might have been copied from my architectu- 
ral dreams, for it often occurred. We hear it 
reported of Dryden, and of Fuselli in modern 
times, that they thought proper to eat raw 
meat for the sake of obtaining splendid dreams: 
how much better, for such a purpose, to have 
eaten opium, which yet I do not remember 
that any poet is recorded to have done, except 
the dramatist Shadwell; and in ancient days, 
Homer is, I think, rightly reputed to have 
known the virtues of opium. 

To my architecture succeeded dreams of 
lakes, and silvery expanses of water: these 
haunted me so much, that I feared (though 
possibly it will appear ludicrous to a medical 
man) that some dropsical state or tendency of 
the brain might thus be making itself (to use a 
metaphysical word) objective, and the sentient 
organ project itself as its own object. For two 
months I suffered greatly in my head — a part 
of my bodily structure which had hitherto been 
so clear from all touch or taint of weakness 
(physically, I mean), that I used to say of it, 
as the last Lord Orford said of his stomach, 
that it seemed likely to survive the rest of 
my person. Till now I had never felt a head- 
ache even, or any the slightest pain, except 
rheumatic pains caused by my own folly. 
However, I got over this attack, though it 
must have been verging on something very 
dangerous. 

The waters now changed their character, — 
from translucent lakes, shining like mirrors, 
they now became seas and oceans. And now 
came a tremendous change, which, unfolding 
itself slowly like a scroll, through many months, 
promised an abiding torment; and, in fact, it 



never left me until the winding up of my case. 
Hitherto the human face had often mixed in 
my dreams, but not despotically, nor with any 
special power of tormenting. But now that 
which I have called the tyranny of the human 
face, began to unfold itself. Perhaps some 
part of my London life might be answerable 
for this. Be that as it may, now it was that 
upon the rocking waters of the ocean the 
human face began to appear; the sea appeared 
paved with innumerable faces, upturned to the 
heavens; faces, imploring, wrathful, despair- 
ing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, 
by generations, by centuries : my agitation was 
infinite, my mind tossed and surged with the 
ocean. 

May, 1818. — The Malay has been a fear- 
ful enemy for months. I have been every 
night, through his means, transported into 
Asiatic scenes. I know not whether others 
share in my feelings on this point; but I have 
often thought that if I were compelled to 
forego England, and to live in China, and 
among Chinese manners and modes of life 
and scenery, I should go mad. The causes 
of my horror lie deep, and some of them must 
be common to others. Southern Asia, in 
general, is the seat of awful images and asso- 
ciations. As the cradle of the human race, it 
would alone have a dim and reverential feel- 
ing connected with it. But there are other 
reasons. No man can pretend that the wild, 
barbarous, and capricious superstitions of 
Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect 
him in the way that he is affected by the 
ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate 
religions of Indostan, etc. The mere antiq- 
uity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, 
histories, modes of faith, etc., is so impres- 
sive, that to me the vast age of the race and 
name overpowers the sense of youth in the 
individual. A young Chinese seems to me 
an antediluvian man renewed. Even English- 
men, though not bred in any knowledge of 
such institutions, cannot but shudder at the 
mystic sublimity of castes that have flowed 
apart, and refused to mix, through such im- 
memorial tracts of time; nor can any man 
fail to be awed by the names of the Ganges, 
or the Euphrates. It contributes much to 
these feelings, that Southern Asia is, and has 
been for thousands of years, the part of the 
earth most swarming with human life, the 
great officina gentium. Man is a weed in 
those regions. The vast empires, also, into 
which the enormous population of Asia has 



s"l 



THOMAS Di. QUINCEY 



always been cast, give a further sublimity to 
the feelings associated with nil oriental names 
or images. In China, over and above what it 
lias in common with the resl of Southern 
.Asia, 1 .mi terrified by the modes of life, by 
the manners, and the barrier of utter abhor 
unci-, and want of sviii|>aili v, placed between 
us by feelings deeper than 1 can analyst', l 
could sooner live with lunatics, or brute 

animals. All this, and much more than I 

can say, or have time to say, the reader must 

enter into, before lie ean comprehend the 

unimaginable honor which these dreams of 

oriental imagery, and mythological tortures, 

impressed upon me. Under the connecting 

feelinjj; of tropical heat and vertieal sunlights, 
I Wrought together all creatures, birds, lieasls, 
reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and ap 
pe. ii. nuts, that are found in all tropieal 

regions, and assembled them together in China 
or [ndostan, From kindred feelings, l soon 

blOUghl Egypt and all her gods under the 
same law. 1 was stared at, hooted at, grinned 

at, chattered at, by monkeys, by paroquets, 

by COCkatOOS. 1 ran into pagodas, and was 
fixed, lor centuries, at the summit, or in seerel 
rooms: 1 was the idol; 1 was the priest ; I 
was worshipped; 1 was sacrificed, 1 lied 
from the wrath of Hi. una through all the 
forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me; Seeva laid 
wait for me. 1 eame suddenly upon Isis and 
Osiris: I hail done a iWi\, they said, whieh 
the ibis and the eroeodile trembled at. I was 
buried, lor a thousand vears, in stone collins, 

with mummies ami sphinxes, in narrow cham- 
bers at the heart of eternal pyramids. 1 was 
kissed, with eaneerous kisses, by eroeodiles; and 

laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy 

things, amongst reeds and Nilotie mud. 

1 thus give the reader some slight ahslrac 
lion of my Oriental dreams, whieh always 
tilled me with sin h amazement at the uion 
strolls scenery, that horror seemed absorbed, 
lor a while, in sheer astonishment. Sooner or 
later eame a reflux of feeling that swallowed 
up the astonishment, and left me, not so 
much in terror, as in hatred and aliomination 
of what I saw Over every form, and threat, 
and punishment, and dim sightless ineareera 
(ion, brooded a sense of eternity and infinity 
that drove me into an oppression as of mad 
ness. Into these dreams Only, it was, with 
one or two slight e\i ep! ions, dial any cireum 

stances of physical horror entered Ul before 

had been moral and spiritual terrors. But 
here the main agents weie Ugly birds, or 



snakes, or eroeodiles, especially the last. The 

cursed crocodile became to me the object oi 

more horror than almost all the rest. I was 
Compelled to live with him; and (as was 
always the ease, almost, in my dreams) for 
Centuries, 1 escaped sometimes, and found 
myself in Chinese houses with cane tallies, ete. 
All the feel of the tallies, solas, ete., soon 

became instinct with life: the abominable 

head of the eroeodile, and his leering eves, 
looked out at me, multiplied into a thousand 
repetitions; and I stood loathing and fasei 
nated. And so often did this hideous reptile 
haunt my dreams, that many limes the vei\ 
same dream was broken up in the verv same 
Way! I heard gentle voices speaking to me 

(1 hear everything when 1 am sleeping), and 

instantly I awoke: it was hroad noon, and 
my children were standing, hand in hand, at 
my bedside; Come to show me their coloured 
shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them 
dressed for going out. 1 protest that so awful 
was the transition from the damned crocodile, 
and the other unutteralile monsters and ahor 
lions of my dreams, to the sight of innocent 
human natures and of infancy, that, in the 
mighty and sudden revulsion of mind, I wept, 
and could not forbear it, as 1 kissed their 
faces. 

| une, iSi<). I have had occasion to re 
mark, at various periods of my life, that the 
deaths of those whom we love, and, indeed, 

the contemplation of death generally, is (caeteris 

paribus) more affecting in summer than in any 
other season of the year. And the reasons are 
these three, I think: first, that the visible 

heavens in summer appear far higher, more 

distant, and (if such a solecism may he e\ 
CUSed) more infinite; the clouds by which 
Chiefly the eye expounds the distance of the blue 
pavilion Stretched over our heads are in sum- 
mer more voluminous, more massed, and aCCU 
initiated in far grander and more towering piles: 
Secondly, the light and the appearances of the 
declining and the setting sun are much more 

titled to be types and characters of the infinite: 

and, thirdly (which is the main reason), the 
exuberant and riotous prodigality of life 

naturally forces the mind more powerfully 

upon the antagonist thought of death, and the 
wintry sterility of the grave. For it may he 
observed, generally, that wherever two thoughts 
Stand related to each other by a law of an 
tagonism, and exist, as it were, by mutual 
repulsion, they are apt to suggest each other. 
On these accounts it is that I find it impossible 



CoNFFSSloNS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 



3<J5 



to banish the thought of death when I am 
walking alone in the endless days of summer; 
ami any particular death, if not more affecting, 
at least haunts my mind more obstinately and 
besiegingly, in that season. Perhaps tins 

cause, and a slight incident wliirli I omit, 
might have been Hie immediate occasions of 
the following dream, to wliieli, however, a pre 
disposition must always have existed in in\ 

1 1; but having been once roused, it never 

left me, and split into a thousand fantastic 
varieties, which often suddenly reunited, and 
composed again the original dream. 
1 thought that ii was a Sunday morning in 

May; that il was Faster Sunday, and as ye! 
very early in the morning. I was standing, 

as it seemed to me, at the door of my own 

cottage. Right before me lay the very scene 

which COUld really lie ( oiumanded from that 
Situation, but exalted, as was usual, ami 
solemnised by (he power of dreams. There 
were the same mountains, and the same lovely 
valley at their feet; but the mountains wen- 
raised to more than Alpine height, and then- 
was interspace far larger between them of 
meadows and forest lawns; the hedges were 
rich with white roses; and no living creatine 
was to be seen, excepting that in the green 
church yard there were cattle tranquilly repos- 
ing upon the verdant graves, and particularly 
round about the grave of a child whom I had 
tenderly loved, just as I had really beheld 
them, a little before sunrise, in the same 

summer, when that child died. I gazed upon 

the well known scene, and I said aloud (as I 
thought) to myself, "It yet wants much of 
sunrise; and it is Faster Sunday ; ami that is 
the day on which they celebrate the first fruits 
of resurrection. 1 will walk abroad; old 
griefs shall be forgotten today; for the air 
is COOl and still, and the hills are high, ami 
stretch away to heaven; and the forest glades 
are as quiet as the church yard; and with the 
dew I can wash the fever from my forehead, 
and then I shall be unhappy no longer." And 
I turned, as if to open my garden gale; and 

immediately I saw upon the left a scene far 

different; but which yet the power of dreams 
had reconciled into harmony with the other. 
The scene was an oriental one; and there also 
it was Easter Sunday, and very early in ihe 
morning. And at a vast distance were visible, 
as a slain upon the horizon, the domes and 

cupolas of a great city - an image or faint 
abstraction, caught, perhaps, in childhood, 
from some picture of Jerusalem. And not a 



bowshot from me, upon a Stone, and shaded 
by Judean palms, there sat a woman; and I 
looked, and il was Ann! She fixed her 
eyes upon me earnestly; and I said to her, 
at length, "So, then, I have loiiml you, at 
last." I wailed; but she answcicd me not a 
word. Her face was the same as when I saw 

it last, and yet, again, how different ! Seven 

teen years ago, when the lamp light fell upon 
her face, as for the last time I kissed her lips 

(lips, Ann, that to me were not polluted!), 

her eyes were streaming with tears; her 
tears were now wiped away; she seemed more 
beautiful than she was at that lime, but in 
all other points the same, and nol older. I hi 
looks were tranquil, but with unusual solem- 
nity of expression, and I now gazed upon her 

with some awe; but suddenly her countenance 

grew dim, and, turning tO the mountains, I 
pen eived vapours rolling between us; in a 
moment, all had vanished; thick darkness 

came on; and in the twinkling oi an eye l 

was far away froi ounlains, anil by lamp 

light in Oxford Street, walking again with Ann 

— just as we walked seventeen years before, 
when We were both < 1 1 1 1< 1 1 < 11 

As a linal specimen, I cite one of a different 
character, from 1820. 

The dream commenced wilh a music which 
now I often heard in dreams a music of 
preparation and of awakening suspense; a 

music like the opening of the Coronation 
Anthem, and which, like that, gave the feeling 
of a vast march, <>f infinite cavalcades liling 

off, and the I lead of innumerable armies. 
The morning was come ol a mighty day — a 
day of crisis and of final hope for human 
nature, then Suffering some mysterious eclipse, 
and labouring in some dread extremity. Some 
where, I knew nol where somehow, I knew 
not how - by some beings, I knew not whom 

— a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, 

was evolving like a great drama, or piece 

of music; with which my sympathy was the 

more insupportable from my confusion as to 
its place, its cause, its nature, and its possi- 
ble issue. I, as is Usual in dream:, (where, of 
necessity, we make ourselves central lo every 
Vement), had the power, and yet had nol 

the power, 10 decide it. I had the power, if 

I could raise myself, to will il ; and yet again 
had not the power, for the weighl of twenty 
Atlantic's was upon me, or the oppression of 
inexpiable guilt. " I )ei per than ever plummet 
sounded," I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, 
the passion deepened. Some greater interest 



3 66 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



was at stake; some mightier cause than ever 
yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had pro- 
claimed. Then came sudden alarms; luirry- 
ings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable 

fugitives. I knew not whether from the good 
cause or the had ; darkness and lights; tempest 
and human faces; and at last, with the sense 
that all was lost, female forms, and the features 
that were worth all the world to me, and but 
a moment allowed, — and clasped hands, and 
heart-breaking partings, and then — everlast- 
ing farewells! and, with a sigh, such as the 
caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother 
uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound 
was reverberated everlasting farewells! and 
again, and vet again reverberated — everlast- 
ing farewells I 

And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud 
— "I will sleep no more!" 

THOMAS CARLYLE (i 795-1881) 

SARTOR RESARTUS 

CHAPTER VI 

Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh 

We have long felt that, with a man like our 
Professor, matters must often be expected to 
take a course of their own; that in so multi- 
plex, intricate a nature, there might be channels, 
both for admitting and emitting, such as the 
Psychologist had seldom noted; in short, that 
on no grand occasion and convulsion, neither 
in the joy storm nor in the woe storm, could 
you predict his demeanour. 

To our less philosophical readers, for ex- 
ample, it is now clear that the so passionate 
Teufelsdrockh, precipitated through "a shivered 

Universe" in this extraordinary way, has only 

one of three things which he can next ^\o: 
Establish himself in bedlam; begin writing 
Satanic Poetry ; or blowout his brains. In 
the progress towards any of which consumma- 
tions, i\o not such readers anticipate extrava- 
gance enough; breast beating, brow beating 
(against walls), lion bellowings of blasphemy 
and the like, stampings, sinkings, breakages 
of furniture, if not arson itself? 

Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. 

He quietly lifts his Pilgerstab (Pilgrim-staff), 

"old business being soon woundup"; and 
begins a perambulation and circumambulation 
of tin- terraqueous Globel Curious it is, in- 
deed, how with such vivacity of conception, 
such intensity of feeling; above all, with these 



unconscionable habits of Exaggeration in 
speech, he combines that wonderful stillness 
of his, that stoicism in external procedure. 
Thus, if his sudden bereavement, in this 
matter of the blower-goddess, is talked of as 
a real Doomsday and Dissolution of Nature, 
in which light doubtless it partly appeared to 
himself, his own nature is nowise dissolved 
thereby; but rather is compressed closer. 
For once, as we might say, a Blumine by 
magic appliances has unlocked that shut heart 
of his, and its hidden things rush-out tu- 
multuous, boundless, like genii enfranchised 
from their glass phial: but no sooner are 
your magic appliances withdrawn, than the 
strange casket of a heart springs-to again; 
and perhaps there is now no key extant that 
will open it; for a Teufelsdrockh, as we re- 
marked, will not love a second time. Singular 
Diogenes! No sooner has that heart-rending 
occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects 
to regard it as a thing natural, of which there 
is nothing more to be said. "One highest 
hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an 
Angel, had recalled him as out of Death- 
shadows into celestial life: but a gleam of 
Tophct passed over the face of his Angel; 
he was rapt away in whirlwinds, and heard 
the laughter of Demons. It was a Calenture," 
adds he, "whereby the Youth saw green 
Paradise groves in the waste Ocean-waters: 
a lying vision, yet not wholly a lie, for he saw 
it." but what things soever passed in him, 
when he ceased to see it; what ragingS and 

despairings soever Teufelsdrd'ckh's sourwas the 
scene of, he has the goodness to conceal under 
a quite opaque cover of Silence. We know it 
well; the first mad paroxysm past, our brave 
Gneschen collected his dismembered philoso- 
phies, and buttoned himself together; he was 
meek, silent, or spoke of the weather and the 
Journals: only by a transient knitting of 
those shaggy brows, by some deep Hash of 
those eves, glancing one knew not whether 
with tear dew or with tierce tire, — might you 
have guessed what a Gehenna was within; 
that a whole Satanic School were spouting, 
though inaudibly, there. To consume your 
own choler, as some chimneys consume their 
own smoke; to keep a whole Satanic School 
Spouting, if it must spout, inaudibly, is a 
negative vet no slight virtue, nor one of the 
commonest in these times. 

Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to 
Say, that in the strange measure he fell upon, 
there was not a touch of latent Insanity; 



SARTOR RF.SARTUS 



367 



whereof indeed the actual condition of these 
Documents in Capricorn us and Aquarius is no 
bad emblem. His so unlimited Wanderings, 
toilsome enough, are without assigned or per- 
haps assignable aim; internal Unrest seems 
his sole guidance; he wanders, wanders, as if 
that curse of the Prophet had fallen on him, 
and he were "made like unto a wheel." Doubt- 
less, too, the chaotic nature of these Paper- 
bags aggravates our obscurity. Quite without 
note of preparation, for example, we come 
upon the following slip: "A peculiar feeling 
it is that will rise in the Traveller, when turn- 
ing some hill-range in his desert road, he 
descries lying far below, embosomed among 
its groves and green natural bulwarks, and all 
diminished to a toybox, the fair Town, where 
so many souls, as it were seen and yet unseen, 
are driving their multifarious traffic. Its 
white steeple is then truly a starward pointing 
finger; the canopy of blue smoke seems like 
a sort of Life breath: for always, of its own 
unity, the soul gives unity to whatsoever it 
looks on with love; thus docs the little Dwell- 
ingplace of men, in itself a congeries of houses 
and huts, become for us an individual, almost 
a person. But what thousand other thoughts 
unite thereto, if the place has to ourselves been 
the arena of joyous or mournful experiences; 
if perhaps the cradle we were rocked in still 
stands there, if our Loving ones still dwell 
there, if our Buried ones there slumber!" 
Does Teufelsdrockh, as the wounded eagle is 
said to make for its own eyrie, and indeed 
military deserters, and all hunted outcast 
creatures, turn as if by instinct in the direction 
of their birth-land, — fly first, in this extremity, 
towards his native Entepfuhl; but reflecting 
that there no help awaits him, takes but one 
wistful look from the distance, and then wend 
elsewhither? 

Little happier seems to be his next flight: 
into the wilds of Nature; as if in her mother- 
bosom he would seek healing. So at least we 
incline to interpret the following Notice, 
separated from the former by some consider- 
able space, wherein, however, is nothing note- 
worthy. 

"Mountains were not new to him; but 
rarely are Mountains seen in such combined 
majesty and grace as here. The rocks are of 
that sort called Primitive by the mineralogists, 
which always arrange themselves in masses of 
a rugged, gigantic character; which rugged- 
ness, however, is here tempered by a singular 
airiness of form, and softness of environment: 



in a climate favourable to vegetation, the gray 
el iff, itself covered with lichens, shoots-up 
through a garment of foliage or verdure; 
and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster 
round the everlasting granite. In fine vicissi- 
tude, Beauty alternates with Grandeur: you 
ride through stony hollows, along strait passes 
traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls 
of rock; now winding amid broken shaggy 
chasms, and huge fragments; now suddenly 
emerging into some emerald valley, where the 
streamlet collects itself into a Lake, and man 
has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems 
as if Peace had established herself in the 
bosom of Strength. 

"To Peace, however, in this vortex of exist- 
ence, can the Son of Time not pretend: still 
less if some Spectre haunt him from the Past ; 
and the Future is wholly a Stygian darkness, 
spectre bearing. Reasonably might the Wan- 
derer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of 
this world's Happiness inexorably shut against 
thee; hast thou a hope that is not mad? 
Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, 
or in the original Greek if that suit thee better: 
'Whoso can look on Death will start at no 
shadows.' 

"From such meditations is the Wanderer's 
attention called outwards; for now the Valley 
closcs-in abruptly, intersected by a huge moun- 
tain mass, the stony water-worn ascent of 
which is not to be accomplished on horseback. 
Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into 
the evening sunset light; and cannot but 
pause, and gaze round him, some moments 
there. An upland irregular expanse of wold, 
where valleys in complex branchings are sud- 
denly or slowly arranging their descent towards 
every quarter of the sky. The mountain - 
ranges arc beneath your feet, and folded 
together: only the loftier summits look down 
here and there as on a second plain ; lakes 
also lie clear and earnest in their solitude. 
No trace of man now visible; unless indeed it 
were he who fashioned that little visible link 
of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling the 
inaccessible, to unite Province with Province. 
But sunwards, lo you ! how it towers sheer 
up, a world of Mountains, the diadem and 
centre of the mountain region ! A hundred 
and a hundred savage peaks, in the last light 
of Day; all glowing, of gold and amethyst, 
like giant spirits of the wilderness; there in 
their silence, in their solitude, even as on the 
night when Noah's Deluge first dried ! Beauti- 
ful, nay solemn, was the sudden aspect to our 



368 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



Wanderer. He gazed over those stupendous 
masses with wonder, almost with longing 
desire; never till this hour had he known 
Nature, that she was One, that she was his 
Mother and divine. And as the ruddy glow 
was fading into clearness in the sky, and the 
Sun had now departed, a murmur of Eternity 
and Immensity, of Death and of Life, stole 
through his soul; and he felt as if Death and 
Life were one, as if the Earth were not dead, 
as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne in 
that splendour, and his own spirit were there- 
with holding communion. 

"The spell was broken by a sound of car- 
riage-wheels. Emerging from the hidden 
Northward, to sink soon into the hidden 
Southward, came a gay Barouche-and-four: 
it was open; servants and postillions wore 
wedding-favours: that happy pair, then, had 
found each other, it was their marriage even- 
ing! Few moments brought them near: Du 

II immel ! It was Herr Towgood and Blu- 

mine! With slight unrecognising salutation 
they passed me; plunged down amid the neigh- 
bouring thickets, onwards, to Heaven, and to 
England; and I, in my friend Richter's words, 
I remained alone, behind than, with the Night." 

Were it not cruel in these circumstances, 
here might be the place to insert an observa- 
tion, gleaned long ago from the great Clothes- 
Volume, where it stands with quite other 
intent: "Some time before Small-pox was ex- 
tirpated," says the Professor, "there came a 
new malady of the spiritual sort on Europe: 
1 mean the epidemic, now endemical, of View- 
hunting. Poets of old date, being privileged 
with Senses, had also enjoyed external Nature; 
but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup which 
holds good or bad liquor for us; that is to 
say, in silence, or with slight incidental com- 
mentary: never, as I compute, till after the 
Sorroivs of Werter, was there man found who 
would say: Come let us make a Description! 
Having drunk the liquor, come let us eat the 
glass! Of which endemic the Jenner is un- 
happily still to seek." Too true! 

\\ e reckon it more important to remark 
that the Professor's Wanderings, so far as his 
stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to 
clear insight, here first take their permanent 
character, fatuous or not. That Basilisk- 
glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have 
withered-up what little remnant of a purpose 
may have still lurked in him: Life has become 
wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through 
long years, our Friend, flying from spectres, 



has to stumble about at random, and naturally 
with more haste than progress. 

Foolish were it in us to attempt following 
him, even from afar, in this extraordinary 
world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record 
of which, were clear record possible, would fill 
volumes. Hopeless is the obscurity, unspeak- 
able the confusion. He glides from country 
to country, from condition to condition ; vanish- 
ing and reappearing, no man can calculate 
how or where. Through all quarters of the 
world he wanders, and apparently through all 
circles of society. If in any scene, perhaps 
difficult to fix geographically, he settles for a 
time, and forms connections, be sure he will 
snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink 
out of sight as Private Scholar {Privatisircnder), 
living by the grace of God, in some European 
capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in 
the neighbourhood of Mecca. It is an inex- 
plicable Phantasmagoria, capricious, quick- 
changing; as if our Traveller, instead of limbs 
and highways, had transported himself by some 
wishing-carpet, or Fortunatus' Hat. The 
whole, too, imparted emblematically, in dim 
multifarious tokens (as that collection of 
Street-Advertisements) ; with only some touch 
of direct historical notice sparingly interspersed : 
little light-islets in the world of haze ! So that, 
from this point, the Professor is more of an 
enigma than ever. In figurative language, we 
might say he becomes, not indeed a spirit, yet 
spiritualised, vapourised. Fact unparalleled 
in Biography: The river of his History, which 
we have traced from its tiniest fountains, and 
hoped to see flow onward, with increasing 
current, into the ocean, here dashes itself 
over that terrific Lover's Leap; and, as a 
mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tu- 
multuous clouds of spray! Low down it in- 
deed collects again into pools and plashes; 
yet only at a great distance, and with difficulty, 
if at all, into a general stream. To cast a 
glance into certain of those pools and plashes, 
and trace whither they run, must, for a chap- 
ter or two, form the limit of our endeavour. 

For which end doubtless those direct his- 
torical Notices, where they can be met with, 
are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too 
there occurs much, which, with our present 
light, it were questionable to emit. Teufels- 
drockh, vibrating everywhere between the high- 
est and the lowest levels, comes into con- 
tact with public History itself. For example, 
those conversations and relations with illus- 
trious Persons, as Sultan Mahmoud, the Em- 



SARTOR RESARTUS 



369 



peror Napoleon, and others, are they not as 
yet rather of a diplomatic character than of 
a biographic? The Editor, appreciating the 
sacredness of crowned heads, nay perhaps sus- 
pecting the possible trickeries of a Clothes- 
Philosopher, will eschew this province for the 
present; a new time may bring new insight 
and a different diuy. 

If we ask. now, not indeed with what ulterior 
Purpose, for there was none, yet with what 
immediate outlooks; at all events, in what 
mood of mind, the Professor undertook and 
prosecuted this world-pilgrimage, — the an- 
swer is more distinct than favourable. "A 
nameless Unrest," says he, "urged me for- 
ward; to which the outward motion was some 
momentary lying solace. Whither should I 
go? My Loadstars were blotted out; in that 
canopy of grim fire shone no star. Yet for- 
ward must I; the ground burnt under me; 
there was no rest for the sole of my foot. I 
was alone, alone ! Ever too the strong inward 
longing shaped Fantasms for itself: towards 
these, one after the other, must I fruitlessly 
wander. A feeling I had, that for my fever- 
thirst there was and must be somewhere a 
healing Fountain. To many fondly imagined 
Fountains, the Saints' Wells of these days, 
did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great Cities, 
to great Events: but found there no healing. 
In strange countries, as in the well-known; 
in savage deserts, as in the press of corrupt 
civilisation, it was ever the same: how could 
your Wanderer escape from — his own 
Shadow? Nevertheless still Forward! I felt 
as if in great haste; to do I saw not what. 
From the depths of my own heart, it called to 
me, Forwards! The winds and the streams, 
and all Nature sounded to me, Forwards! 
Ach Gotl, I was even, once for all, a Son of 
Time." 

From which is it not clear that the internal 
Satanic School was still active enough? He 
says elsewhere: "The Enchiridion of Epicte- 
tus I had ever with me, often as my sole rational 
companion; and regret to mention that the 
nourishment it yielded was trifling." Thou 
foolish Teufelsdrockh! How could it else? 
Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand 
thus much: The end of Man is an Action, 
and not a Thought, though it were the noblest ? 

"How I lived?" writes he once: "Friend, 
hast thou considered the 'rugged all-nourishing 
Earth,' as Sophocles well names her; how she 
feeds the sparrow on the house-top, much 
more her darling, man? While thou stirrest 



and livcst, thou hast a probability of victual. 
My breakfast of tea has been cooked by a 
Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who 
wiped her earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I 
have roasted wild-eggs in the sand of Sahara; 
I have awakened in Paris Estrapades and 
Vienna Malzleins, with no prospect of break- 
fast beyond elemental liquid. That I had my 
Living to seek saved me from Dying, — by 
suicide. In our busy Europe, is there not an 
everlasting demand for Intellect, in the chemi- 
cal, mechanical, political, religious, educational, 
commercial departments ? In Pagan countries, 
cannot one write Fetiches? Living! Little 
knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive 
Soul; how, as with its little finger, it can 
create provision enough for the body (of a 
Philosopher); and then, as with both hands, 
create quite other than provision; namely, 
spectres to torment itself withal." 

Poor Teufelsdrockh ! Flying with Hunger 
always parallel to him; and a whole Infernal 
Chase in his rear; so that the countenance 
of Hunger is comparatively a friend's! Thus 
must he, in the temper of ancient Cain, or of 
the modern Wandering Jew, — save only that 
he feels himself not guilty and but suffering 
the pains of guilt, — wend to and fro with 
aimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole 
surface of the earth (by foot-prints), write his 
Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh ; even as the great 
Goethe, in passionate words, had to write his 
Sorrows of Werler, before the spirit freed her- 
self, and he could become a Man. Vain truly 
is the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape 
"from his own Shadow!" Nevertheless, in 
these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first 
descries himself (about the age of twenty) in a 
world such as ours, richer than usual in two 
things, in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades 
grown obsolete, — what can the fool think but 
that it is all a Den of Lies, wherein whoso will 
not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle 
and despair? Whereby it happens that, for 
your nobler minds the publishing of some 
such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect, 
becomes almost a necessity. For what is it 
properly but an Altercation with the Devil, 
before you begin honestly Fighting him? 
Your Byron publishes his Sorrows of Lord 
George, in verse and in prose, and copiously 
otherwise: your Bonaparte represents his Sor- 
rows of Napoleon Opera, in ail-too stupendous 
style; with music of cannon -volleys, and mur 
der-shrieks of a world ; his stage-lights are the 
fires of Conflagration ; his rhyme and recitative 



37° 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



are the tramp of embattled Hosts and the sound 
of falling Cities. — Happier is he who, like 
our Clothes-Philosopher, can write such mat- 
ter, since it must be written, on the insensi- 
ble Earth, with his shoe-soles only; and also 
survive the writing thereof! 

CHAPTER VII 
The Everlasting No 

Under the strange nebulous envelopment, 
wherein our Professor has now shrouded him- 
self, no doubt but his spiritual nature is nev- 
ertheless progressive, and growing: for how 
can the "Son of Time," in any case, stand 
still? We behold him, through those dim 
years, in a state of crisis, of transition: his 
mad Pilgrimings, and general solution into 
aimless Discontinuity, what is all this but a 
mad Fermentation ; whcrefrom, the fiercer it 
is, the clearer product will one day evolve 
itself? 

Such transitions are ever full of pain: thus 
the Eagle when he moults is sickly; and, to 
attain his new beak, must harshly dash-off 
the old one upon rocks. What Stoicism soever 
our Wanderer, in his individual acts and 
motions, may affect, it is clear that there is a 
hot fever of anarchy and misery raving within; 
coruscations of which flash out: as, indeed, 
how could there be other? Have we not 
seen him disappointed, bemocked of Destiny, 
through long years? All that the young heart 
might desire and pray for has been denied; 
nay, as in the last worst instance, offered 
and then snatched away. Ever an "excellent 
Passivity"; but of useful, reasonable Activity, 
essential to the former as Food to Hunger, 
nothing granted: till at length, in this wild 
Pilgrimage, he must forcibly seize for himself 
an Activity, though useless, unreasonable. 
Alas, his cup of bitterness, which had been 
Idling drop by drop, ever since the first "ruddy 
morning" in the Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was 
at the very lip; and then with that poison- 
drop, of the Towgood-and-Bl limine business, 
it runs over, and even hisses over in a deluge of 
foam. 

He himself says once, with more justice 
than originality: "Man is, properly speaking, 
based upon Hope, he has no other possession 
but Hope; this world of his is emphatically 
the Place of Hope." What then was our Pro- 
fessor's possession? We sec him, for the 
present, quite shut-out from Hope; looking 



not into the golden orient, but vaguely all 
around into a dim copper firmament, pregnant 
with earthquake and tornado. 

Alas, shut-out from Hope, in a deeper sense 
than we yet dream of! For, as he wanders 
wearisomely through this world, he has now 
lost all tidings of another and higher. Full of 
religion, or at least of religiosity, as our Friend 
has since exhibited himself, he hides not 
that, in those days, he was wholly irreligious: 
"Doubt had darkened into Unbelief," says 
he; "shade after shade goes grimly over your 
soul, till you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean 
black." To such readers as have reflected, 
what can be called reflecting, on man's life, 
and happily discovered, in contradiction to 
much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, speculative 
and practical, that Soul is not synonymous with 
Stomach; who understand, therefore, in our 
Friend's words, "that, for man's well-being, 
Faith is properly the one thing needful; how, 
with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheer- 
fully endure the shame and the cross; and 
without it, Worldlings puke-up their sick 
existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury": 
to such, it will be clear that, for a pure moral 
nature, the loss of his religious Belief was 
the loss of everything. Unhappy young man ! 
All wounds, the crush of long-continued Des- 
titution, the stab of false Friendship, and of 
false Love, all wounds in thy so genial heart, 
would have healed again, had not its life- 
warmth been withdrawn. Well might he ex- 
claim, in his wild way: "Is there no God, 
then; but at best an absentee God,' sitting 
idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the out- 
side of his Universe, and arcing it go? Has 
the word Duty no meaning; is what we call 
Duty no divine Messenger and Guide, but a 
false earthly Fantasm, made-up of Desire and 
Fear, of emanations from the Gallows and 
from Doctor Graham's Celestial Bed? Hap- 
piness of an approving Conscience! Did not 
Paul of Tarsus, whom admiring men have 
since named Saint, feel that lie was 'the child" 
of sinners,' and Nero of Rome, jocund in 
spirit (Wohlgemuth), spend much of his time 
in fiddling? Foolish Wordmongcr, and Motive- 
grinder, who in thy Logic-mill hast an earthly 
mechanism for the Godlike itself, and wouldst 
fain grind me out Virtue from the husks of 
Pleasure, — I tell thee, Nay! To the un- 
regenerate Prometheus Vinctus of a man, it is 
ever the bitterest aggravation of his wretched- 
ness that he is conscious of Virtue, that he 
feels himself the victim not of suffering only, 



SARTOR RESARTUS 



37 1 



but of injustice. What then? Is the heroic 
inspiration we name Virtue but some Passion; 
some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the 
direction others profit by? I know not: only 
this I know, if what thou names! Happiness 
be our true aim, then are we all astray. With 
Stupidity and sound digestion man may front 
much. Hut what, in these dull unimaginative 
days are the terrors of Conscience to the dis- 
eases of the Liver ! Not on Morality,, but on 
Cookery, let us build our stronghold: there 
brandishing our frying-pan, as censer, let us 
offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at 
ease on the fat things he has provided for his 
Elect!" 

Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, 
as so many have done, shouting question after 
question into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, and 
receive no Answer but an Echo. It is all a 
grim Desert, this once-fair world of his; 
wherein is heard only the howling of wild- 
beasts, or the shrieks of despairing, hate-filled 
men; and no Pillar of Cloud by day, and no 
Pillar of Fire by night, any longer guides the 
Pilgrim. To such length has the spirit of 
Inquiry carried him. "But what boots it 
(was thut's) ? " cries he ; " it is but the common 
lot in this era. Not having come to spiritual 
majority prior to the Siccle de Louis Quinze, 
and not being born purely a Loghead (Ditnnii- 
kopf), thou hadst no other outlook. The whole 
world is, like thee, sold to Unbelief; their old 
Temples of the Godhead, which for long have 
not been rainproof, crumble down; and men 
ask now: Where is the Godhead; our eyes 
never saw him?" 

Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild 
utterances, to call our Diogenes wicked. Un- 
profitable servants as we all are, perhaps at 
no era of his life was he more decisively the 
Servant of Goodness, the Servant of God, 
than even now when doubting God's existence. 
"One circumstance I note," says he: "after 
all the nameless woe that Inquiry, which for 
me, what it is not always, was genuine Love 
of Truth, had wrought me, I nevertheless still 
loved Truth, and would bate no jot of my 
allegiance to her. 'Truth!' I cried, 'though 
the Heavens crush me for following her: no 
Falsehood! though a whole celestial Lubber- 
land were the price of Apostasy.' In conduct 
it was the same. Had a divine Messenger 
from the clouds, or miraculous Handwriting 
on the wall, convincingly proclaimed to me 
This thou shall do, with what passionate readi- 
ness, as I often thought, would I have done it, 



had it been leaping into the infernal Fire. 
Thus, in spite of all Motive-grinders, and 
Mechanical Profit-and-Loss Philosophies, with 
the sick ophthalmia and hallucination they had 
brought on, was the Infinite nature of Duty 
Still dimly present to me: living without God 
in the world, of God's light I was not utterly 
bereft; if my as yet sealed eyes, with their 
unspeakable longing, could nowhere see Him, 
nevertheless in my heart He was present, and 
His heaven-written Law still stood legible 
and sacred there." 

Meanwhile, under all these tribulations, and 
temporal and spiritual destitutions, what must 
the Wanderer, in his silent soul, have endured ! 
"The painfullest feeling," writes he, "is thai 
of your own Feebleness (Unhrafl); ever as 
the English Milton says, to be weak is the 
true misery. And yet of your Strength there 
is and can be no clear feeling, save by what 
you have prospered in, by what you have done. 
Between vague wavering Capability and fixed 
indubitable Performance, what a difference! 
A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells 
dimly in us; which only our Works can ren- 
der articulate and decisively discernible. Our 
Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first 
sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the 
folly of that impossible Precept, Know thyself; 
till it be translated into this partially possible 
one, Know what thou canst work at. 

"But for me, so strangely unprosperous had 
I been, the net-result of my Workings amounted 
as yet simply to — Nothing. How then could 
I believe in my Strength, when there was as 
yet no mirror to sec it in? Ever did this 
agitating, yet, as I now perceive, quite frivolous 
question, remain to me insoluble: Hast thou 
a certain Faculty, a certain Worth, such even 
as the most have not; or art thou the com- 
pletest Dullard of these modern limes? Alas! 
the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself; 
and how could 1 believe? Had not my first, 
last Faith in myself, when even to me the 
Heavens seemed laid open, and I dared to 
love, been ail-too cruelly belied? The specu- 
lative Mystery of Life grew ever more mys- 
terious to me; neither in the practical Mystery 
had I made the slightest progress, but been 
everywhere buffeted, foiled, and contemptuously 
cast out. A feeble unit in the middle of a 
threatening Infinitude, I seemed to have noth- 
ing given me but eyes, whereby to discern my 
own wretchedness. Invisible yet impenetrable 
walls, as of Enchantment, divided me from 
all living: was there, in the wide world, any 



37 2 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



true bosom I could press trustfully to mine? 
O Heaven, No, there was none! I kept a 
lock upon my lips: why should I speak much 
with that shifting variety of so-called Friends, 
in whose withered, vain and too-hungry souls, 
Friendship was but an incredible tradition? 
In such cases, your resource is to talk little, 
and that little mostly from the Newspapers. 
Now when I look back, it was a strange iso- 
lation I then lived in. The men and women 
around me, even speaking with me, were 
but Figures: I had, practically, forgotten that 
they were alive, that they were not merely 
automatic. In the midst of their crowded 
streets, and assemblages, I walked solitary; 
and (except as it was my own heart, not an- 
other's, that I kept devouring) savage also, as 
the tiger in his jungle. Some comfort it would 
have been, could I, like a Faust, have fancied 
myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; 
for a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though 
only diabolic Life, were more frightful: but 
in our age of Down-pulling and Disbelief, the 
very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot 
so much as believe in a Devil. To me the 
Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of 
Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge, 
dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, 
in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from 
limb. O, the vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, 
and Mill of Death! Why was the Living 
banished thither companionless, conscious? 
Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the 
Devil is your God?" 

A prey incessantly to such corrosions, might 
not, moreover, as the worst aggravation to them, 
the iron constitution even of a Teufelsdrockh 
threaten to fail ? We conjecture that he has 
known sickness; and, in spite of his locomotive 
habits, perhaps sickness of the chronic sort. 
Hear this, for example: "How beautiful to 
die of broken-heart, on Paper! Quite another 
thing in practice; every window of your Feel- 
ing, even of your Intellect, as it were, begrimed 
and mud-bespattered, so that no pure ray can 
enter; a whole Drugshop in your inwards; 
the foredone soul drowning slowly in quag- 
mires of Disgust !" 

Putting all which external and internal 
miseries together, may we not find in the 
following sentences, quite in our Professor's 
still vein, significance enough? "From Sui- 
cide a certain aftershine (Nachschein) of Chris- 
tianity withheld me: perhaps also a certain 
indolence of character; for, was not that a 
remedy I had at any time within reach ? Often, 



however, was there a question present to me: 
Should some one now, at the turning of that 
corner, blow thee suddenly out of Space, into 
the other World, or other No-world, by pistol- 
shot, — how were it? On which ground, too, 
I have often, in sea-storms and sieged cities 
and other death-scenes, exhibited an imper- 
turbability, which passed, falsely enough, for 
courage." 

"So had it lasted," concludes the Wanderer, 
"so had it lasted, as in bitter protracted Death- 
agony, through long years. The heart within 
me, unvisited by any heavenly dewdrop, was 
smouldering in sulphurous, slow-consuming 
fire. Almost since earliest memory I had shed 
no tear; or once only when I, murmuring half- 
audibly, recited Faust's Deathsong, that wild 
Selig der den cr im Sieges glanze findei (Happy 
whom he finds in Battle's splendour), and 
thought that of this last Friend even I was not 
forsaken, that Destiny itself could not doom me 
not to die. Having no hope, neither had I 
any definite fear, were it of Man or of Devil: 
nay, I often felt as if it might be solacing, could 
the Arch-Devil himself, though in Tartarean 
terrors, but rise to me, that I might tell him a 
little of my mind. And yet, strangely enough, 
I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; 
tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I 
knew not what : it seemed as if all things in the 
Heavens above and the Earth beneath would 
hurt me; as if the Heavens and the Earth were 
but boundless jaws of a devouring monster, 
wherein I, palpitating, waited to be devoured. 

"Full of such humour, and perhaps the mis- 
erablest man in the whole French Capital or 
Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dog-day, after much 
perambulation, toiling along the dirty little 
Rue Saint-Thomas de VEnfer, among civic 
rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and 
over pavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar's 
Furnace; whereby doubtless my spirits were 
little cheered; when, all at once, there rose a 
Thought in me, and I asked myself: 'What 
art thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, 
dost thou forever pip and whimper, and go 
cowering and trembling? Despicable biped! 
what is the sum-total of the worst that lies 
before thee? Death? Well, Death; and say 
the pangs of Tophct too, and all that the Devil 
and Man may, will, or can do against thee ! 
Hast thou not a heart; canst thou not suffer 
whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, 
though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy 
feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, 
then ; I will meet it and defy it !' And as I so 









SARTOR RESARTUS 



373 



thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over 
my whole soul; and I shook base Fear away 
from me forever. I was strong of unknown 
strength; a spirit, almost a god. Ever from 
that time, the temper of my misery was changed: 
not Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but Indig- 
nation and grim fire-eyed Defiance. 

"Thus had the Everlasting No (das ewige 
Ncin) pealed authoritatively through all the 
recesses of my Being, of my Me ; and then was 
it that my whole Me stood up, in native God- 
created majesty, and with emphasis recorded 
its Protest. Such a Protest, the most impor- 
tant transaction in Life, may that same Indig- 
nation and Defiance, in a psychological point 
of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No 
had said: 'Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, 
and the Universe is mine (the Devil's)'; to 
which my whole Me now made answer: '/ am 
not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee!' 

"It is from this hour that I incline to date my 
Spiritual New-birth, or Baphometic Fire-bap- 
tism ; perhaps I directly thereupon began to be 
a Man." 

CHAPTER VIII 

Centre of Indifference 

Though, after this "Baphometic Fire-bap- 
tism" of his, our Wanderer signifies that his 
Unrest was but increased; as, indeed, "Indig- 
nation and Defiance," especially against things 
in general, are not the most peaceable inmates; 
yet can the Psychologist surmise that it was 
no longer a quite hopeless Unrest; that hence- 
forth it had at least a fixed centre to revolve 
round. For the fire-baptised soul, long so 
scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own 
Freedom, which feeling is its Baphometic 
Baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom 
it has thus gained by assault; and will keep 
inexpugnable; outwards from which the re- 
maining dominions, not indeed without hard 
battling, will doubtless by degrees be con- 
quered and pacificated. Under another figure, 
we might say, if in that great moment, in the 
Rue Saint-Thomas de VEnfcr, the old inward 
Satanic School was not yet thrown out of doors, 
it received peremptory judicial notice to quit; 
— whereby, for the rest, its howl-chantings, 
Ernulphus-cursings, and rebellious gnashings 
of teeth, might, in the meanwhile, become only 
the more tumultuous, and difficult to keep 
secret. 

Accordingly, if we scrutinise these Pilgrim- 
ings well, there is perhaps discernible hence- 



forth a certain incipient method in their mad- 
ness. Not wholly as a Spectre does Teufels- 
drockh now storm through the world; at worst 
as a spectre-fighting Man, nay who will one 
day be a Spectre-queller. If pilgrim ing rest- 
lessly to so many "Saints' Wells," and ever 
without quenching of his thirst, he neverthe- 
less finds little secular wells, whereby from 
time to time some alleviation is ministered. 
In a word, he is now, if not ceasing, yet inter- 
mitting to "eat his own heart"; and clutches 
round him outwardly on the Not-Me for whole- 
somer food. Does not the following glimpse 
exhibit him in a much more natural state? 

"Towns also and Cities, especially the an- 
cient, I failed not to look upon with interest. 
How beautiful to see thereby, as through a long 
vista, into the remote Time ; to have, as it were, 
an actual section of almost the earliest Past 
brought safe into the Present, and set before 
your eyes ! There, in that old City, was a 
live ember of Culinary Fire put down, say only 
two-thousand years ago; and there, burning 
more or less triumphantly, with such fuel as 
the region yielded, it has burnt, and still burns, 
and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. 
Ah ! and the far more mysterious live ember 
of Vital Fire was then also put down there; 
and still miraculously burns and spreads; 
and the smoke and ashes thereof (in these 
Judgment-Halls and Churchyards), and its 
bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou still 
seest; and its flame, looking out from every 
kind countenance, and every hateful one, still 
warms thee or scorches thee. 

"Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief 
results are aeriform, mystic, and preserved in 
Tradition only: such are his Forms of Gov- 
ernment, with the Authority they rest on; his 
Customs, or Fashions both of Cloth-Habits 
and of Soul-Habits; much more his collective 
stock of Handicrafts, the whole Faculty he 
has acquired of manipulating Nature: all 
these things, as indispensable and priceless as 
they are, cannot in any way be fixed under lock 
and key, but must flit, spirit-like, on impalpable 
vehicles, from Father to Son; if you demand 
sight of them, they are nowhere to be met with. 
Visible Ploughmen and Hammermen there 
have been, ever from Cain and Tubalcain 
downwards: but where does your accumulated 
Agricultural, Metallurgic, and other Manu- 
facturing Skill lie warehoused? It transmits 
itself on the atmospheric air, on the sun's rays 
(by Hearing and Vision) ; it is a thing aeriform, 
impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like 



374 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



manner, ask me not, Where are the Laws; 
where is the Government? In vain wilt thou 
go to Schonbrunn, to Downing Street, to the 
Palais Bourbon: thou findest nothing there, 
but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of 
Papers tied with tape. Where, then, is that 
same cunningly-devised or mighty Government 
of theirs to be laid hands on ? Everywhere, yet 
nowhere: seen only in its works, this too is a 
thing aeriform, invisible ; or if you will, mystic 
and miraculous. So spiritual (geistig) is our 
whole daily Life: all that we do springs out of 
Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force; only like a 
little Cloud-image, or Armida's Palace, air- 
built, does the Actual body itself forth from the 
great mystic Deep. 

"Visible and tangible products of the Past, 
again, I reckon-up to the extent of three: 
Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals; then 
tilled Fields, to either or to both of which 
divisions Roads with their Bridges may belong; 
and thirdly — Books. In which third truly, 
the last-invented, lies a worth far surpassing 
that of the two others. Wondrous indeed is 
the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead 
city of stones, yearly crumbling, yearly needing 
repair; more like a tilled field, but then a 
spiritual field : like a spiritual tree, let me rather 
say, it stands from year to year, and from age to 
age (we have Books that already number some 
hundred-and-fifty human ages); and yearly 
comes its new produce of leaves (Commentaries, 
Deductions, Philosophical, Political Systems; 
or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic 
Essays), every one of which is talismanic and 
thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. O thou 
who art able to write a Book, which once in the 
two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted 
to do, envy not him whom they name City- 
builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they 
name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too 
art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true 
sort, namely over the Devil : thou too hast built 
what will outlast all marble and metal, and be 
a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple 
and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto 
all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim. — Fool ! 
why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy anti- 
quarian fervour, to gaze on the stone pyramids 
of Geeza or the clay ones of Sacchara ? These 
stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, 
looking over the Desert, foolishly enough, for 
the last three-thousand years: but canst thou 
not open thy Hebrew Bible, then, or even 
Luther's Version thereof?" 

No less satisfactory is his sudden appear- 



ance not in Battle, yet on some Battle-field; 
which, we soon gather, must be that of Wagram : 
so that here, for once, is a certain approxima- 
tion to distinctness of date. Omitting much, 
let us impart what follows: 

"Horrible enough! A whole Marchfeld 
strewed with shell-splinters, cannon-shot, 
ruined tumbrils, and dead men and horses; 
stragglers still remaining not so much as buried. 
And those red mould heaps: ay, there lie the 
Shells of Men, out of which all the Life and 
Virtue has been blown; and now they are 
swept together, and crammed-down out of 
sight, like blown Egg-shells ! — Did Nature, 
when she bade the Donau bring down his 
mould-cargoes from the Carinthian and Car- 
pathian Heights, and spread them out here 
into the softest, richest level, — intend thee, 
O Marchfeld, for a corn-bearing Nursery, 
whereon her children might be nursed; or for 
a Cockpit, wherein they might the more com- 
modiously be throttled and tattered ? Were thy 
three broad highways, meeting here from the 
ends of Europe, made for Ammunition-wagons, 
then? Were thy Wagrams and Stillfrieds but 
so many ready-built Case-mates, wherein the 
house of Hapsburg might batter with artillery, 
and with artillery be battered? Konig Otto- 
kar, amid yonder hillocks, dies under Rodolf's 
truncheon; here Kaiser Franz falls a-swoon 
under Napoleon's: within which five centuries, 
to omit the others, how hast thy breast, fair 
Plain, been defaced and defiled ! The green- 
sward is torn-up and trampled-down ; man's 
fond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge-rows, and 
pleasant dwellings, blown-away with gunpow- 
der; and the kind seedfield lies a desolate, 
hideous Place of Skulls. — Nevertheless, Na- 
ture is at work; neither shall these Powder- 
Devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay her: 
but all that gore and carnage will be shrouded- 
in, absorbed into manure; and next year the 
Marchfeld will be green, nay greener. Thrifty 
unwearied Nature, ever out of our great waste 
educing some little profit of thy own, — how 
dost thou, from the very carcass of the Killer, 
bring Life for the Living ! 

"What, speaking in quite unofficial language, 
is the net-purport and upshot of war? To 
my own knowledge, for example, there dwell 
and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, 
usually some five-hundred souls. From these, 
by certain 'Natural Enemies' of the French, 
there are successively selected, during the 
French war, say thirty able-bodied men: 
Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled 



SARTOR RESARTUS 



375 



and nursed them; she has, not without dif- 
ficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, 
and even trained them to crafts, so that one can 
weave, another build, another hammer, and the 
weakest can stand under thirty stone avoir- 
dupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping 
and swearing, they are selected ; all dressed in 
red; and shipped away, at the public charges, 
some two-thousand miles, or say only to the 
south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. 
And now to that same spot in the south of 
Spain, are thirty similar French artisans, from 
a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending: 
till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties 
come into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty 
stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his 
hand. Straightway the word ' Fire ! ' is given : 
and they blow the souls out of one another; 
and in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the 
world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must 
bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men 
any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the 
smallest ! They lived far enough apart ; 
were the entirest strangers; nay, in so wide 
a Universe, there was even unconsciously, by 
Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between 
them. How then? Simpleton! their Gov- 
ernors had fallen-out; and, instead of shooting 
one another, had the cunning to make these 
poor blockheads shoot. — Alas, so is it in 
Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands; 
still as of old, 'what devilry soever Kings do, 
the Greeks must pay the piper ! ' — In that 
fiction of the English Smollett, it is true, the 
final Cessation of War is perhaps prophetically 
shadowed forth; where the two Natural Ene- 
mies, in person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, 
filled with Brimstone; light the same, and 
smoke in one another's faces till the weaker 
gives in: but from such predicted Peace-Era, 
what blood-filled trenches, and contentious 
centuries, may still divide us!" 

Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid 
intervals, look away from his own sorrows, 
over the many-coloured world, and pertinently 
enough note what is passing there. We may 
remark, indeed, that for the matter of spiritual 
culture, if for nothing else, perhaps few periods 
of his life were richer than this. Internally, 
there is the most momentous instructive Course 
of Practical Philosophy, with Experiments, 
going on ; towards the right comprehension of 
which his Peripatetic habits, favourable to 
Meditation, might help him rather than hinder. 
Externally, again, as he wanders to and fro, 
there are, if for the longing heart little sub- 



stance, yet for the seeing eye sights enough: 
in these so boundless Travels of his, granting 
that the Satanic School was even partially kept 
down, what an incredible knowledge of our 
Planet, and its Inhabitants and their Works, 
that is to say, of all knowable things, might not 
Teufelsdrockh acquire ! 

"I have read in most Public Libraries," says 
he, "including those of Constantinople and 
Samarcand: in most Colleges, except the 
Chinese Mandarin ones, I have studied, or seen 
that there was no studying. Unknown lan- 
guages have I oftenest gathered from their 
natural repertory, the Air, by my organ of 
Hearing; Statistics, Geographies, Topograph- 
ies came, through the Eye, almost of their 
own accord. The ways of Man, how he seeks 
food, and warmth, and protection for himself, 
in most regions, are ocularly known to me. 
Like the great Hadrian, I meted-out much of 
the terraqueous Globe with a pair of Com- 
passes that belonged to myself only. 

"Of great Scenes, why speak? Three sum- 
mer days, I lingered reflecting, and composing 
(dichtele), by the Pine-chasms of Vaucluse; 
and in that clear lakelet moistened my bread. 
I have sat under the Palm-trees of Tadmor; 
smoked a pipe among the ruins of Babylon. 
The great Wall of China I have seen; and 
can testify that it is of gray brick, coped and 
covered with granite, and shows only second- 
rate masonry. — Great events, also, have not 
I witnessed? Kings sweated-down (ausge- 
mergelt) into Berlin-and-Milan Customhouse- 
Officers; the World well won, and the World 
well lost ; oftener than once a hundred-thousand 
individuals shot (by each other) in one day. 
All kindreds and peoples and nations dashed 
together, and shifted and shovelled into heaps, 
that they might ferment there, and in time unite. 
The birth-pangs of Democracy, wherewith 
convulsed Europe was groaning in cries that 
reached Heaven, could not escape me. 

"For great Men I have ever had the warmest 
predilection; and can perhaps boast that few 
such in this era have wholly escaped me. 
Great Men are the inspired (speaking and 
acting) Texts of that divine Book of Revela- 
tions, whereof a Chapter is completed from 
epoch to epoch, and by some named History; 
to which inspired Texts your numerous talented 
men, and your innumerable untalented men, 
are the better or worse exegetic Commentaries, 
and wagonload of too-stupid, heretical or ortho- 
dox, weekly Sermons. For my study, the in- 
spired Texts themselves! Thus did not I, 



376 



THOMAS CARLYLE 






in very early days, having disguised me as a 
tavern-waiter, stand behind the field-chairs, 
under that shady Tree at Treisnitz by the Jena 
Highway; waiting upon the great Schiller 
and greater Goethe; and hearing what I have 
not forgotten. For — " 

— But at this point the Editor recalls his 
principle of caution, some time ago laid down, 
and must suppress much. Let not the sacred- 
ness of Laurelled, still more, of Crowned Heads, 
be tampered with. Should we, at a future day, 
find circumstances altered, and the time come 
for Publication, then may these glimpses into 
the privacy of the Illustrious be conceded; 
which for the present were little better than 
treacherous, perhaps traitorous Eavesdroppings. 
Of Lord Byron, therefore, of Pope Pius, Em- 
peror Tarakwang, and the "White Water- 
roses" (Chinese Carbonari) with their mys- 
teries, no notice here ! Of Napoleon himself 
we shall only, glancing from afar, remark that 
Teufelsdrockh's relation to him seems to have 
been of very varied character. At first we find 
our poor Professor on the point of being shot 
as a spy ; then taken into private conversation, 
even pinched on the ear, yet presented with no 
money; at last indignantly dismissed, almost 
thrown out of doors, as an "Ideologist." "He 
himself," says the Professor, "was among the 
completest Ideologists, at least Ideopraxists : 
in the Idea (in der Idee) he lived, moved, and 
fought. The man was a Divine Missionary, 
though unconscious of it; and preached, 
through the cannon's throat, that great doctrine, 
La carriere ouverte aux talens (The Tools to 
him that can handle them), which is our ulti- 
mate Political Evangel, wherein alone can 
Liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is 
true, as Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are 
wont, with imperfect utterance, amid much 
frothy rant; yet as articulately perhaps as the 
case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an 
American Backwoodsman, who had to fell un- 
penetrated forests, and battle with innumer- 
able wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong 
liquor, rioting, and even theft; whom, not- 
withstanding, the peaceful Sower will follow, 
and, as he cuts the boundless harvest, bless." 

More legitimate and decisively authentic is 
Teufelsdrockh's appearance and emergence 
(we know not well whence) in the solitude 
of the North Cape, on that June Midnight. 
He has a "light-blue Spanish cloak" hanging 
round him, as his "most commodious, princi- 
pal, indeed sole upper-garment"; and stands 
there, on the World-promontory, looking over 



the infinite Brine, like a little blue Belfry (as 
we figure), now motionless indeed, yet ready, 
if stirred, to ring quaintest changes. 

"Silence as of death," writes he; "for Mid- 
night, even in the Arctic latitudes, has its char- 
acter: nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy- 
tinged, the peaceable gurgle of that slow- 
heaving Polar Ocean, over which in the utmost 
North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as 
if he too were slumbering. Yet is his cloud- 
couch wrought of crimson and cloth-of-gold; 
yet does his light stream over the mirror of 
waters, like a tremulous fire-pillar, shooting 
downwards to the abyss, and hide itself under 
my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is 
invaluable ; for who would speak, or be looked 
on, when behind him lies all Europe and Africa, 
fast asleep, except the watchmen ; and before him 
the silent Immensity, and Palace of the Eternal, 
whereof our Sun is but a porch-lamp? 

"Nevertheless, in this solemn moment, 
comes a man, or monster, scrambling from 
among the rock-hollows; and, shaggy, huge as 
the Hyperborean Bear, hails me in Russian 
speech: most probably, therefore, a Russian 
Smuggler. With courteous brevity, I signify 
my indifference to contraband trade, my hu- 
mane intentions, yet strong wish to be private. 
In vain: the monster, counting doubtless on 
his superior stature, and minded to make sport 
for himself, or perhaps profit, were it with 
murder, continues to advance; ever assailing 
me with his importunate train-oil breath; and 
now has advanced, till we stand both on the 
verge of the rock, the deep Sea rippling greedily 
down below. What argument will avail? 
On the thick Hyperborean, cherubic reasoning, 
seraphic eloquence were lost. Prepared for 
such extremity, I, deftly enough, whisk aside 
one step; draw out, from my interior reser- 
voirs, a sufficient Birmingham Horse-pistol, 
and say, 'Be so obliging as retire, Friend (Er- 
ziehe sieli zuriick, Freund), and with prompti- 
tude!' This logic even the Hyperborean un- 
derstands: fast enough, with apologetic, peti- 
tionary growl, he sidles off; and, except for 
suicidal as well as homicidal purposes, need 
not return. 

"Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gun- 
powder: that it makes all men alike tall. Nay, 
if thou be cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have 
more Mind, though all but no Body whatever, 
then canst thou kill me first, and art the taller. 
Hereby, at last, is the Goliath powerless, and 
the David resistless; savage Animalism is 
nothing, inventive Spiritualism is all. 



SARTOR RESARTUS 



377 



"With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my 
own ideas. Few things, in this so surprising 
world, strike me with more surprise. Two 
little visual Spectra of men, hovering with 
insecure enough cohesion in the midst of the 
Unfathomable, and to dissolve therein, at any 
rate, very soon, — make pause at the distance 
of twelve paces asunder; whirl round; and, 
simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, 
explode one another into Dissolution; and off- 
hand Income Air, and Non-extant! Deuce 
on it (vc nla in nit), the little spitfires! — Nay, 
I think with old Hugo von Trimberg: 'God 
must needs laugh outright, could such a thing 
be, to see his wondrous Manikins here below.'" 

But amid these specialties, let us not forget 
the great generality, which is our chief quest 
here: How prospered the inner man of Teu- 
felsdrockh under so much outward shifting? 
Does Legion still lurk in him, though repressed; 
or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood? We 
can answer that the symptoms continue prom- 
ising. Experience is the grand spiritual 
Doctor; and with him Teufelsdrockh has now 
been long a patient, swallowing many a bitter 
bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong to the 
numerous class of Incurables, which seems not 
likely, some cure will doubtless be effected. 
We should rather say that Legion, or the 
Satanic School, was now pretty well extirpated 
and cast out, but next to nothing introduced in 
its room ; whereby the heart remains, for the 
while, in a quiet but no comfortable state. 

"At length, after so much roasting," thus 
writes our Autobiographer, "I was what you 
might name calcined. Pray only that it be 
not rather, as is the more frequent issue, re- 
duced to a caput-morluumt But in any case, 
by mere dint of practice, I had grown familiar 
with many things. Wretchedness was still 
wretched; but I could now partly see through 
it, and despise it. Which highest mortal, in this 
inane Existence, had I not found a Shadow- 
hunter or Shadow-hunted; and, when I looked 
through his brave garnitures, miserable enough ? 
Thy wishes have all been sniffed aside, thought 
I: but what, had they ( ven been all granted! 
Did not the Boy Alexander weep because he 
had not two Planets to conquer; or a whole 
Solar System ; or after that, a whole Universe? 
Ach Gott, when I gazed into these Stars, have 
they not looked-down on me as if with pity, 
from their serene spaces; like Eyes glistening 
with heavenly tears over the little lot of man ! 
Thousands of human generations, all as noisy 
as our own, have been swallowed-up of Time, 



and there remains no wreck of them any more ; 
and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius and the 
Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear 
and young, as when the Shepherd first noted 
them in the plain of Shinar. Pshaw! whaf is 
this paltry little Dog-cage of an Earth; what 
art thou that sittest whining there? Thou 
art still Nothing, Nobody: true; but who, 
then, is Something, Somebody? For thee the 
Family of Man has no use; it rejects thee; 
thou art wholly as a dissevered limb: so be it; 
perhaps it is better so !" 

Too-heavy-laden Teufelsdrockh ! Yet surely 
his bands are loosening; one day he will hurl 
the burden far from him, and bound forth 
free and with a second youth. 

"This," says our Professor, "was the Centre 
of Indifference I had now reached; through 
which whoso travels from the Negative Pole to 
the Positive must necessarily pass." 

CHAPTER IX 

The Everlasting Yea 

"Temptations in the Wilderness!" exclaims 
Teufelsdrockh: "Have we not all to be tried 
with such? Not so easily can the old Adam, 
lodged in us by birth, be dispossessed. Our 
Life is compassed round with Necessity; yet 
is the meaning of Life itself no other than Free- 
dom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a 
warfare; in the beginning, especially, a hard- 
fought battle. For the God-given mandate, 
Work thou in Welldoing, lies mysteriously 
written, in Promethean Prophetic Characters, in 
our hearts; and leaves us no rest, night or day, 
till it be deciphered and obeyed; till it burn 
forth, in our conduct, a visible, acted Gospel 
of Freedom. And as the clay-given mandate, 
Eat thou and be filled, at the same time per- 
suasively proclaims itself through every nerve, 

— must there not be a confusion, a contest, 
before the better Influence can become the 
upper? 

"To me nothing seems more natural than 
that the Son of Man, when such God -given 
mandate first prophetically stirs within him, and 
the Clay must now be vanquished or vanquish, 

— should be carried of the spirit into grim 
Solitudes, and there fronting the Tempter do 
grimmest battle with him ; defiantly setting 
him at naught, till he yield and fly. Name 
it as we choose: with or without visible Devil, 
whether in the natural Desert of rocks and 
sands, or in the populous moral Desert of 



378 



THOMAS CARLYLE 






selfishness and baseness, — to such Temptation 
are we all called. Unhappy if we are not ! 
Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom 
that divine handwriting has never blazed forth, 
all-subduing, in true sun -splendour; but 
quivers dubiously amid meaner lights: or 
smoulders, in dull pain, in darkness, under 
earthly vapours ! — Our Wilderness is the wide 
World in an Atheistic Century; our Forty Days 
are long years of suffering and fasting: never- 
theless, to these also comes an end. Yes, 
to me also was given, if not Victory, yet the 
consciousness of Battle, and the resolve to 
persevere therein while life or faculty is left. 
To me also, entangled in the enchanted forests, 
demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, 
it was given, after weariest wanderings, to 
work out my way into the higher sunlit slopes 
— of that Mountain which has no summit, or 
whose summit is in Heaven only!" 

He says elsewhere, under a less ambitious 
figure; as figures are, once for all, natural to 
him: "Has not thy Life been that of most 
sufficient men (tiichtigen Manner) thou hast 
known in this generation? An outflush of 
foolish young Enthusiasm, like the first fallow- 
crop, wherein are as many weeds as valu- 
able herbs: this all parched away, under the 
Droughts of practical and spiritual Unbelief, 
as Disappointment, in thought and act, often- 
repeated gave rise to Doubt, and Doubt grad- 
ually settled into Denial! If I have had a 
second-crop, and now see the perennial green- 
sward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which 
defy all Drought (and Doubt) ; herein too, be 
the Heavens praised, I am not without ex- 
amples, and even exemplars." 

So that, for Teufelsdrockh also, there has 
been a "glorious revolution": these mad 
shadow-hunting and shadow-hunted Pilgrim- 
ings of his were but some purifying "Tempta- 
tion in the Wilderness," before his apostolic 
work (such as it was) could begin; which 
Temptation is now happily over, and the Devil 
once more worsted! Was "that high moment 
in the Rue de I'Enfer," then, properly the turn- 
ing-point of the battle; when the Fiend said, 
Worship me, or be torn in shreds; and was 
answered valiantly with an Apage Satana? — 
Singular Teufelsdrockh, would thou hadst 
told thy singular story in plain words! But 
it is fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, 
for such. Nothing but innuendoes, figurative 
crotchets: a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering, 
prophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. 
"How paint to the sensual eye," asks he once, 



"what passes in the Holy-of-Holies of Man's 
Soul ; in what words, known to these profane 
times, speak even afar-off of the unspeakable ? " 
We ask in turn: Why perplex these times, 
profane as they are, with needless obscurity, 
by omission and by commission ? Not mys- 
tical only is our Professor, but whimsical; 
and involves himself, now more than ever, 
in eye-bewildering chiaroscuro. Successive 
glimpses, here faithfully imparted, our more 
gifted readers must endeavour to combine for 
their own behoof. 

He says: "The hot Harmattan wind had 
raged itself out; its howl went silent within 
me; and the long-deafened soul could now 
hear. I paused in my wild wanderings; and 
sat me down to wait, and consider; for it was 
as if the hour of change drew nigh. I seemed 
to surrender, to renounce utterly, and say: Fly, 
then, false shadows of Hope; I will chase you 
no more, I will believe you no more. And ye 
too, haggard spectres of Fear, I care not for 
you; ye too are all shadows and a lie. Let 
me rest here: for I am way-weary and life- 
weary; I will rest here, were it but to die: 
to die or to live is alike to me; alike insig- 
nificant." — And again: "Here, then, as I lay 
in that Centre of Indifference, cast, doubtless 
by benignant upper Influence, into a healing 
sleep, the heavy dreams rolled gradually away, 
and I awoke to a new Heaven and a new 
Earth. The first preliminary moral Act, 
Annihilation of Self (SelbstWdtnng), had been 
happily accomplished; and my mind's eyes 
were now unsealed, and its hands ungyved." 

Might we not also conjecture that the fol- 
lowing passage refers to his Locality, during 
this same "healing sleep"; that his Pilgrim- 
staff lies cast aside here, on "the high table- 
land"; and indeed that the repose is already 
taking wholesome effect on him ? If it were not 
that the tone, in some parts, has more of riancy, 
even of levity, than we could have expected ! 
However, in Teufelsdrockh, there is always 
the strangest Dualism: light dancing, with 
guitar-music, will be going on in the fore-court, 
while by fits from within comes the faint whim- 
pering of woe and wail. We transcribe the 
piece entire: 

"Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey 
Tent, musing and meditating; on the high 
table-land, in front of the Mountains; over me, 
as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for 
walls, four azure-flowing curtains, — namely, 
of the Four azure Winds, on whose bottom- 
fringes also I have seen gilding. And then to 



SARTOR RESARTUS 



379 



fancy the fair Castles, that stood sheltered 
in these Mountain hollows; with their green 
flower-lawns, and white dames and damosels, 
lovely enough : or better still, the straw-roofed 
Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother bak- 
ing bread, with her children round her: — all 
hidden and protectingly folded-up in the valley- 
folds ; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld 
them. Or to see, as well as fancy, the nine 
Towns and Villages, that lay round my moun- 
tain-seat, which, in still weather, were wont 
to speak to me (by their steeple-bells) with 
metal tongue ; and, in almost all weather, pro- 
claimed their vitality by repeated Smoke- 
clouds; whereon, as on a culinary horologue, 
I might read the hour of the day. For it was 
the smoke of cookery, as kind housewives at 
morning, midday, eventide, were boiling their 
husbands' kettles; and ever a blue pillar rose 
up into the air, successively or simultaneously, 
from each of the nine, saying, as plainly as 
smoke could say: Such and such a meal is 
getting ready here. Not uninteresting! For 
you have the whole Borough, with all its love- 
makings and scandal-mongeries, contentions 
and contentments, as in miniature, and could 
cover it all with your hat. — If, in my wide 
Wayfarings, I had learned to look into the busi- 
ness of the World in its details, here perhaps 
was the place for combining it into general 
propositions, and deducing inferences there- 
from. 

"Often also could I see the black Tem- 
pest marching in anger through the distance: 
round some Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, 
would the eddying vapour gather, and there 
tumultuously eddy, and flow down like a mad 
witch's hair; till, after a space, it vanished, 
and, in the clear sunbeam, your Schreckhorn 
stood smiling grim-white, for the vapour had 
held snow. How thou fermentest and elaborat- 
est in thy great fermenting-vat and laboratory 
of an Atmosphere, of a World, O Nature ! — 
Or what is Nature ? Ha ! why do I not name 
thee God? Art thou not the 'Living Garment 
of God ? ' O Heavens, is it, in very deed, He, 
then, that ever speaks through thee; that lives 
and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me? 

"Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splen- 
dours, of that Truth, and Beginning of Truths, 
fell mysteriously over my soul. Sweeter than 
Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla ; 
ah, like the mother's voice to her little child 
that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown 
tumults; like soft streamings of celestial music 
to my too-exasperated heart, came that Evangel. 



The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a 
charnel-house with spectres; but godlike, and 
my Father's ! 

"With other eyes, too, could I now look 
upon my fellow man: with an infinite Love, 
an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward 
man ! Art thou not tried, and beaten with 
stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether thou 
bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, 
art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden ; and thy 
Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O my Brother, 
my Brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my 
bosom, and wipe away all tears from thy eyes ! 
— Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, which, 
in this solitude, with the mind's organ, I could 
hear, was no longer a maddening discord, but 
a melting one ; like inarticulate cries, and sob- 
bings of a dumb creature, which in the ear of 
Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth, with 
her poor joys, was now my needy Mother, not 
my cruel Stepdame; Man, with his so mad 
Wants and so mean Endeavours, had become 
the dearer to me; and even for his sufferings 
and his sins, I now first named him Brother. 
Thus was I standing in the porch of that ' Sanct- 
uary of Sorrow' ; by strange, steep ways, had 
I too been guided thither; and ere long its 
sacred gates would open, and the 'Divine Depth 
of Sorrow' lie disclosed to me." 

The Professor says, he here first got eye on 
the Knot that had been strangling him, and 
straightway could unfasten it, and was free. 
"A vain interminable controversy," writes he, 
"touching what is at present called Origin of 
Evil, or some such thing, arises in every soul, 
since the beginning of the world; and in every 
soul, that would pass from idle Suffering into 
actual Endeavouring, must first be put an end 
to. The most, in our time, have to go content 
with a simple, incomplete enough Suppression 
of this controversy; to a few, some Solution of 
it is indispensable. In every new era, too, such 
Solution comes-out in different terms ; and ever 
the Solution of the last era has become obsolete, 
and is found unserviceable. For it is man's 
nature to change his Dialect from century to 
century; he cannot help it though he would. 
The authentic Church-Catechism of our pres- 
ent century has not yet fallen into my hands: 
meanwhile, for my own private behoof, I 
attempt to elucidate the matter so. Man's 
Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his 
Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in 
him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite 
bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance 
Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners 



3 8o 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



of modern Europe undertake, in joint-stock 
company, to make one Shoeblack happy? 
They cannot accomplish it, above an hour or 
two: for the Shoeblack also has a Soul quite 
other than his Stomach; and would require, 
if you consider it, for his permanent satisfac- 
tion and saturation, simply this allotment, no 
more, and no less: God's infinite Universe 
altogether to himself, therein to enjoy infinitely, 
and fill every wish as fast as it rose. Oceans 
of Hochheimer, a Throat like that of Ophiu- 
chus: speak not of them ; to the infinite Shoe- 
black they are as nothing. No sooner is your 
ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might 
have been of better vintage. Try him with half 
of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to 
quarrelling with the proprietor of the other 
half, and declares himself the most maltreated 
of men. — Always there is a black spot in our 
sunshine: it is even, as I said, the Shadow of 
Ourselves. 

"But the whim we have of Happiness is 
somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and 
averages, of our own striking, we come upon 
some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we 
fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasi- 
ble right. It is simple payment of our wages, 
of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor 
complaint ; only such overplus as there may be 
do we account Happiness; any deficit again is 
Misery. Now consider that we have the val- 
uation of our deserts ourselves, and what a 
fund of Self-conceit there is in each of us, — 
do you wonder that the balance should so often 
dip the wrong way, and many a Blockhead cry: 
See there, what a payment; was ever worthy 
gentleman so used ! — I tell thee, Blockhead, 
it all comes of thy Vanity; of what thou 
fanciest those same deserts of thine to be. 
Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as 
is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be 
only shot: fancy that thou deservest to be 
hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury 
to die in hemp. 

"So true it is, what I then said, that the 
Fraction of Life can be increased in value not 
so much by increasing your Numerator as by 
lessening your Denominator. Nay, unless my 
Algebra deceive me, Unity itself divided by 
Zero will give Infinity. Make thy claim of 
wages a zero, then ; thou hast the world under 
thy feet. Well did the Wisest of our time write : 
'It is only with Renunciation (Entsagen) that 
Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.' 

"I asked myself: What is this that, ever 
since earliest years, thou hast been fretting and 



fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, 
on account of? Say it in a word: is it not 
because thou art not happy? Because the 
Thou (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently 
honoured, nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly 
cared-for? Foolish soul ! What Act of Legis- 
lature was there that thou shouldst be Happy? 
A little while ago thou hadst no right to be 
at all. What if thou wert born and predestined 
not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy! Art 
thou nothing other than a Vulture, then, that 
fliest through the Universe seeking after some- 
what to eat; and shrieking dolefully because 
carrion enough is not given thee? Close thy 
Byron; open thy Goetlie." 

"Es leuchlet mir ein, I see a glimpse of it !" 
cries he elsewhere: "there is in man a Higher 
than Love of Happiness: he can do without 
Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessed- 
ness! Was it not to preach-forth this same 
Higher that sages and martyrs, the Poet and 
the Priest, in all times, have spoken and suf- 
fered; bearing testimony, through life and 
through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, 
and how in the Godlike only has he Strength 
and Freedom? Which God-inspired Doctrine 
art thou also honoured to be taught ; O Heav- 
ens ! and broken with manifold merciful Af- 
flictions, even till thou become contrite, and 
learn it ! O, thank thy Destiny for these ; 
thankfully bear what yet remain: thou hadst 
need of them; the Self in thee needed to be 
annihilated. By benignant fever-paroxysms is 
Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Dis- 
ease, and triumphs over Death. On'the roar- 
ing billows of Time, thou art not engulfed, but 
borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love 
not Pleasure; love God. This is the Ever- 
lasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved : 
wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with 
him." 

And again: "Small is it that thou canst 
trample the Earth with its injuries under thy 
feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee: thou 
canst love the Earth while it injures thee, and 
even because it injures thee; for this a Greater 
than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent. 
Knowest thou that ' Worship of Sorrow'' ? The 
Temple thereof, founded some eighteen cen- 
turies ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with 
jungle, the habitation of doleful creatures: 
nevertheless, venture forward; in a low crypt, 
arched out of falling fragments, thou findest 
the Altar still there, and its sacred Lamp 
perennially burning." 

Without pretending to comment on which 



SARTOR RESARTUS 



38i 



strange utterances, the Editor will only remark, 
that there lies beside them much of a still more 
questionable character; unsuited to the gen- 
eral apprehension; nay, wherein he himself 
does not see his way. Nebulous disquisitions 
on Religion, yet not without bursts of splendour; 
on the "perennial continuance of Inspiration"; 
on Prophecy; that there are "true Priests, as 
well as Baal-Priests, in our own day": with 
more of the like sort. We select some frac- 
tions, by way of finish to this farrago. 

"Cease, my much-respected Herr von 
Voltaire," thus apostrophises the Professor: 
"shut thy sweet voice; for the task appointed 
thee seems finished. Sufficiently hast thou 
demonstrated this proposition, considerable or 
otherwise: That the Mythus of the Christian 
Religion looks not in the eighteenth century 
as it did in the eighth. Alas, were thy six- 
and-thirty quartos, and the six-and-thirty thou- 
sand other quartos and folios, and flying sheets 
or reams, printed before and since on the 
same subject, all needed to convince us of so 
little! But what next? Wilt thou help us to 
embody the divine Spirit of that Religion in a 
new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that 
our Souls, otherwise too like perishing, may 
live? What! thou hast no faculty in that 
kind? Only a torch for burning, no hammer 
for building? Take our thanks, then, and — 
thyself away. 

"Meanwhile what are antiquated Myth uses 
to me ? Or is the God present, felt in my own 
heart, a thing which Herr von Voltaire will dis- 
pute out of me ; or dispute into me ? To the 
'Worship of Sorrow' ascribe what origin and 
genesis thou pleasest, has not that Worship 
originated, and been generated ; is it not here ? 
Feel it in thy heart, and then say whether it is 
of God ! This is Belief; all else is Opinion, — 
for which latter whoso will, let him worry and 
be worried." 

"Neither," observes he elsewhere, "shall ye 
tear-out one another's eyes, struggling over 
'Plenary Inspiration,' and such-like: try rather 
to get a little even Partial Inspiration, each of 
you for himself. One Bible I know, of whose 
Plenary Inspiration doubt is not so much as 
possible; nay with my own eyes I saw the 
God's-Hand writing it: thereof all other 
Bibles are but Leaves, — say, in Picture-Writ- 
ing to assist the weaker faculty." 

Or to give the wearied reader relief, and 
bring it to an end, let him take the following 
perhaps more intelligible passage: 

"To me, in this our life," says the Professor, 



"which is an internecine warfare with the Time- 
spirit, other warfare seems questionable. 
Hast thou in any way a Contention with thy 
brother, I advise thee, think well what the 
meaning thereof is. If thou gauge it to the 
bottom, it is simply this: 'Fellow, see! thou 
art taking more than thy share of Happiness 
in the world, something from my share : which, 
by the Heavens, thou shalt not; nay, I will 
fight thee rather.' — Alas, and the whole lot 
to be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly 
a 'feast of shells,' for the substance has been 
spilled out: not enough to quench one Appe- 
tite; and the collective human species clutch- 
ing at them ! — Can we not, in all such cases, 
rather say: 'Take it, thou too-ravenous indi- 
vidual; take that pitiful additional fraction of 
a share, which I reckoned mine, but which thou 
so wantest; take it with a blessing: would to 
Heaven I had enough for thee!' — If Fichte's 
Wissenschaftslehre be, 'to a certain extent, 
Applied Christianity,' surely to a still greater 
extent, so is this. We have here not a Whole 
Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely, the 
Passive half: could we but do it, as we can 
demonstrate it ! 

"But indeed Conviction, were it never so 
excellent, is worthless till it convert itself into 
Conduct. Nay, properly Conviction is not pos- 
sible till then; inasmuch as all Speculation 
is by nature endless, formless, a vortex amid 
vortices: only by a felt indubitable certainty 
of Experience does it find any centre to revolve 
round, and so fashion itself into a system. 
Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that 
'Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except 
by Action.' On which ground, too, let him 
who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain 
light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may 
ripen into day, lay this other precept well to 
heart, which to me was of invaluable service: 
'Do the Duty which lies nearest thee,' which 
thou knowest to be a Duty ! Thy second Duty 
will already have become clearer. 

"May we not say, however, that the hour of 
Spiritual Enfranchisement is even this: When 
your Ideal World, wherein the whole man has 
been dimly struggling and inexpressibly lan- 
guishing to work, becomes revealed and thrown 
open; and you discover, with amazement 
enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister, 
that your 'America is here or nowhere'? The 
Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was 
never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this 
poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, 
wherein thou even now standest, here or 



382 



THOMAS IIAHINCTON, LORD MAC.U'LAY 



nowhere is lliv [deal: work il out therefrom ; 

and working, believe, live, be free. Fool I the 

Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in 

i h\ telf : thy Condition is bul the stuff thou arl 

to shape thai same Ideal mil of: what mailers 

whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the 
Form thou give il be heroic, be poetic? o 
thou thai pineal in the imprisonment of the 
Actual, ana criest bitterly to the gods for s 
kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this 
of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already 
wiiii thee, 'here or nowhere,' couldsl thou only 

see ! 

"Bui il is with man's Soul as il was with 
\.ii me : the beginning of ( Ycation is 1 ,ighl 

Till the eye have vision, the whole members 

are in bonds. Divine moment, when over the 
tempest losl Soul, as once oyer the wild welter 
tng Chaos, it is spoken: Lei there lie light! 

Evei to the greatest thai has felt such moment, 

is it not miraculous and ( rod aniioiini ing; 
eyen as, under simpler figures, t<> the simplest 
ami least. The mad primeval Discord is 
hushed; the Midelv jumNcd Conflicting cle 
nieiils hind themselves into separate lirma- 

meiiis: deep sileni rock foundations are built 
beneath; and the skyey vauh with its ever 
lasting Luminaries above: instead of s dark 

wasteful Chaos, we haye a blooming, ferlile, 
Heaven encompassed World. 

"I tOO COuld now say to myself: He no lon- 
ger a Chaos, hut a World, or eyen Woildkin. 

Produce! Produce! Were it bul the piti 
fullest infinitesimal fraction of s Product, pro 

duce it, in Cod's name! "I'is the utmost thou 
hast in thee: oiil with it, then. I'p, up! 

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do ii with 

thy whole might, Work while it is called To 

day; for the Night cometh, wherein no man 

Can work." 

THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD 
MACAULAY (1800-1859) 

THE ins torn OF ENGLAND 

VOLUME 1 

From Cb ipteb hi 

I intend, in this chapter, to give B description 
of the stale in which England was at the lime 
when the CTOWn passed from Charles Ihe 

Second to his brother, Such a description, 

composed from scanty and dispersed materials, 

must necessarily he yery imperfect. Yet il 
may perhaps coned some false notions which 



would make the subsequent narrative unin 

telligible or uninstruct ivd 

If we would study with profit the history of 
our ancestors, we must he constantly on our 

guard against thai delusion which the well 

known names of families, places, and ollices 
naturally produce, and must never forgel that 
the COUntry of Which We read was I very dif 
ferent country from that in which we live. 
In every experimental science there is a ten 

dency toward perfection. In every human 

being there IS B wish tO ameliorate his own 

condition, These two principles have often 
sufficed, even when counteracted by great pub- 
lic calamities and by had institutions, to carry 
civilisation rapidly forward, No ordinary 
misfortune, no ordinary misgovemment, will 

do SO much tO make a nation wretched, as Ihe 
Constant progress of physical knowledge and 
the constant effort of every man to heller him 
sell will do to make a nalion prosperous. 
Il has often been found thai profuse e\pen 
diluie, heavy taxation, ahsurd commercial 
restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, 

seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inunda 
tions, haw not been able to destroy capital so 

fast as the exertions Of private citizens have 

heen able to create it. it can easily be proved 

that, iu our own land, the national wealth has, 
.lining at least six centuries, been almost un 

interruptedly increasing; that it was greater 

under ihe Tudors than under the IMantagcncts; 
thai it was greater under the Stuarts than un 

der the Tudors; that, in spite of battles, sieges, 

and Confiscations, il was greater on Ihe day 

of the Restoration than on the day when the 

Long Parliament met; that, in spite of mal 

administration, of extravagance, of public 

bankruptcy, Of tWO cosily and unsuccessful 

wars, of the pestilence and of the fire, it was 

greater on the day of ihe death of Charles the 
Second than on ihe day of his Restoration. 
This progress, having continued during many 

ages, became at length, about the middle of 
the eighteenth century, portentously rapid, 

and has proceeded, during the nineteenlh, with 

accelerated velocity, [n consequence partly 

of our geographical and partly Of our moral 
position, we have, during several generations, 
been exempt from evils which have elsewhere 
impeded the efforts and destroyed the fruits 
of industry. While every part of the Con - 

tinent, from Moscow io Lisbon, has heen the 
theatre ol bloody and devastating wars, no 

Hostile standard has heen seen here hut as a 
trophy. While revolutions have taken place 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



383 



all around us, our governmenl has never once 
been subverted I >y violence. During more 
than a hundred years then- has been in our 
island no tumuli of sufficient importance to be 
called an insurrection; nor has the l;iw been 
once bome down either by popular fury or by 
regal tyranny: public credit has been heldsa 
cred the administration of [ustice has been 
pure: even in times which mighl by English 
mm n be justly called evil times, we have en 

Joyed vvhal almost every oilier nalion in the 
world would have considered as an ample una, 

ure of civil and religious freedom. Every man 
has felt entire confidence thai the state would 
protect him in the possession of whal had been 

earned by his diligence and hoarded l>y his 
self denial. Under ihe benijmanl influence of 

peace and liberty, science has nourished, and 
has been applied to practical purposes on a 
.stale never before known. The consequence 
is that a 1 hange to whit h the history of the old 
world furnishes no parallel has taken plan- in 
our country. Could the England of [685 be, 
by some magical process, sel before our eyes, 
we should not f. now one Landscape in a hundred 
or one building in ten thousand, The country 
gentleman would not recognise his own fields. 
The inhabitant of the town would not rec 
ognise his own .street. Everything has been 
changed bul the great features ol nature, anda 

few massive and durable works of human art. 

We might find out Snowdon and Windermere, 
the Cheddar Cliffs and Beachy l had. We 

might find OUl here and there a Norman mill 

ster, or a castle which witnessed the wars of 
the Roses. But, with such rare exceptions, 
everything would be strange to us. Many 

thousands of square miles whieh are now rich 

corn land and meadow, intersected by green 
hedgerows, and doited with villages and pleas 
ant country seats, would appear as moors over 
grown with furze, or fens abandoned to wild 
ducks. We should see straggling huts built 

of wood and < overed wilh lhalili, where wi- 
dow see manufacturing town:, and seaports 

renowned to the farthest ends of ihe world. 

The capital itself would shrink to dimensions 
not much exceeding those of its present Buburb 

on the south of the Thames Not less strange 

to us would he the garb and manners of I lie 

people, the furniture and the equipages, the 
interior of the shops and dwellings. Such a 
i hange in the stair of a nation seem'; to be al 

least as well entitled to ihe not i( e of a hi sloiian 
as any < ha nee oi the dynasty or of I he ministry. 

One of the lust objects oi an inquirer, who 



wishi s to form a < oi reel notion of the Btate of 
a community ;ii a given time, must be to as 
certain of how many persons thai community 
then consisted. Unfortunately the population 
of England in [685 cannol be ascertained with 
p<a i' 1 1 ai 1 urai y. For no great stale had then 
adopted the wise course of periodically num 

bering the people. All men were left tO <on 

[ecture for themselves; and, as they generally 
conjeel ured without examining fat ts, and under 
the influence of strong passions and prejudices, 
their guesses wen- often ludicrously absurd. 

Even intelligent Londoners ordinarily talked of 

1 .01 1 don as containing several millions of souls. 
it w.r, confidently asserted by many that, dur 
inj': the thirty five years which had elapsed be 
tween the a< < ession ol ( !harles the F irst and 
the Restoration, the population ol the City 
had increased by two millions. Even while 
the ravages of the plague and fire were recent, 

it was the fashion to say that Ihe capital still 
had a million and a half of inhabitants. Some 

persons, disgusted by these exaggerations, ran 
violently into the opposite extreme. Thus 
Isaac vossius, ;i man of undoubted parts and 
learning, strenuously maintained that there 

were only two millions of human beings 
in England, Scotland, and Ireland taken 

togethei 

We are not, however, left without the nu air. 

of correi ting the wild blunders into whii h some 

minds wen hurried liy national vanity and 
others by a morbid love of paradox. There 

are extant three ( omputations whi< h seem 
to be entitled to pe< uliar attention. They are 
entirely independent of each other: they pro 
ceed on different principles; and yet there is 
little different e in the n suits 

tt * -x- * * * # 
Of these three estimates, framed without 
com eii by different persons from different sets 
of materials, the highest, whit h is that oi King, 
doe, not exceed ihe lowest, which is that of 
Finlaison, by one iwelfih. We may, therefore, 
wiih confidence pronounce thai, when James 
the Second reigned, England contained bet ween 
h .' million and five million live hundred thou 
sand inhabitants. <>n the very highest sup 

position she then had less than one third of her 

pr< 'Hi population, and less than three limes 

the population which is now collected in her 
gigantii capital. 

* # * * * * x- 

We should be una h mistaken if we pi< tured 
to ourselves the Bquires ol the seventeenth 
century as men bearing a close resemblance to 



s I 



THOMAS BABINGTON. LORD MACAULAY 



their descendants, the country members and nunciation were such as we should now expect 
chairmen of quarter sessions with whom we to hear <>nlv hum the mosl ignorant clowns, 
.11, i.i miliar. The modern country gentleman His oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms 
generally receives a liberal education, passes of abuse, were uttered with the broadest accenl 
from b distinguished school to b distinguished <>i his province, li was easy to discern, ii>>iu 
college, and has ample opportunity to become the first words which he spoke, whether he 
.in excellent scholar, lie has generally seen came from Somersetshire or Yorkshire, He 
something of foreign countries, A consider troubled himself little about decorating his 
able part of his life has generally been passed abode, and, if he attempted decoration, seldom 
in the capital; and the refinements of the cap produced anything bul deformit} The litter 
ii.il follow him into the country, There is per of .1 farmyard gathered under the windows of 
haps no class ol dwellings bo pleasing as the his bedchamber, and the cabbages and goosi 
1 11 1, 1 1 seats oi 1 he English gentry, [n the parks berry bushes grew close to Ids hall door. His 
and pleasure grounds, nature, dressed vet not table was loaded with coarse plenty; and guests 
disguised b) art, wears hei most alluring form, were cordially welcomed to it. But, as the 
in the buildings, good Bense and gooa taste habil of drinking to excess was general in the 
combine to produce s happy union ol the com class to which he belonged, and as Ins fortune 
fortable and the graceful, The pictures, the did not enable him to intoxicate large assemblies 
musical instruments, the library, would in any daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the 
oiher country be considered as proving ihe ordinary beverage, The quantity of beer con- 
owner tO be an eminently polished and ac sumed in those days was indeed enormous. 

complished man \ country gentleman who For beer then was to the middle and lower 

witnessed the Revolution was probably In re (lasses, not only all thai beer now is, hut all 

Ceipt oi aboul a fourth part of the rent which that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now are. 

his acres now yield to his posterity, lie was, it was only at great houses, or on great oc 

therefore, as compared with his posterity, a casions, (hat foreign di ink was placed on the 

poor man, and was generally inn let the neces hoard. The ladies of ihe house, whose husi 

siiv oi residing, with little interruption, on his ness it had commonly been to cook die repast, 

estate L> travel on the Continent, to main retired as soon as the dishes had been devoured, 

lain an eslahlishmcnl in London, or even to and left t he gent lemen to their ale and lohacco. 

Visit London frequently, wcie pleasures in The coarse jollity of the afternoon was often 

which only the i-real proprietors could indulge. prolonged till the reyellcrs were laid under the 

It may he confidently affirmed thai of the table. 

BOUiieS whose names were then in (he Com ll was very seldom that the country gentle 

missions of Peace and Lieutenancy not one in man CaUghl glimpses of the great world; and 

twenty went lo town once in five \e.us, 01 had what he saw of it tended rather to conluse than 

evei m his life wandered so far as Paris. Many to enlii'hlen his Understanding. His opinions 

lords oi manors had received an education dii respecting religion, government, foreign coun 

fering hide from thai of their menial servants, tries and former times, having been derived, 

The heir of an estate often passed his hoyhood not from sludv, horn observation, or from ion 

and youth al the seal of his family wilh no hcl versa! ion with enlightened companions, hut 

ter tutors than grooms and gamekeepers, and from such Iradilions as were current in his 

scarce attained learning enough to sign his own small circle, were the opinions oi a child. 

name lo a Mittimus. li' he went to school and He adhered to them, however, with the ohsti 

io college, he generally returned before he was nacy which Is generally found in ignorant men 

twenty tO the seclusion oi ihe old hall, and accustomed to he fed with llatlery. 1 1 is aid 

there, unless his mind were yery happily con mosities were numerous and hitler. He haled 

StitUted by nature, soon forgot his academical Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irish 

pursuits in rural business and pleasures. His men, Papists and I'reshvterians, Independents 

chief serious employinenl was the care of his and Kaplisls, Ouakcrs and Jews. Towards 

property, He examined samples of grain, London and Londoners he fell an aversion 

handled pigs, and, on market days, made har which more than once produced important 

gains over a tankard with doners and hop political effects. His wife and daughter were 

merchants, His chief pleasures were com in tastes ami acquirements helow a housekeeper 

monly derived from field sports and from an or a still room maid of the present day. They 

unrefined sensuality. His language and pro stitched and spun, brewed gooseberry wine. 






THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 385 

cured marigolds, and made the crust For the VTel he was essentially a patrician, and had, In 

venison pasty large measure, both the virtues and ih<- vices 

From this description ii might be supposed which Sourish among men Bel iiom their birth 

that the English esquire of the seventeenth cen- in high place, and used to respect themselves 

tury did not materially < I i 1 1< 1 from a rustic and to be respected by others 11 is nol easy 

millei "i alehouse keeper oi our time There i"i :i generation accustomed to find chivalrous 

are, however, some important parts of his < hai sentiments only in company with liberal studies 

acter still to be noted, which will greatly modify and polished manners to image to itseli man 

this estimate. Unlettered as be was and un wiih the deportment, the vocabulary, and the 

polished, he was still in some most important accent «>i a carter, yel punctilious <>n matters 

points a gentleman. He was a member of a <>i genealogy and precedence, and ready u> 

proud and powerful aristocracy, and was dis risk his life rathei than see a stain cast on the 

tinguished l>y many both of the good and of honour of his house ti is, however, only l>y 

the bad qualities which belong to aristocrats, thus joining together things seldom or never 

llis family pride was beyond that of a Talbot found togethei in our own experience thai we 

or a Howard. He knew the genealogies and can form a just idea ol that rustii aristocracy 

coats of arms of all his neighbours, and could tell which constituted the main strength of the 

which of them had assumed supporters without armies of Charles the First, and which long 

any right, and which of them were .so unfortu supported, wiih strange fidelity, the interesl 

nate as to be great grandsons of aldermen, oi his descendants 

He was a magistrate, and, as such, administered 'The gross, uneducated, untravelled country 

gratuitously i<> those who dwell around him a gentleman was commonly a Tory; but, though 

rude patriarchal justice, which, in spite of in devotedly attached i<> hereditary monarchy, he 

numerable blunders and of occasional acts of bad no partiality for courtiers and ministers 

tyranny, was yet better than no justice at all. He thought, not withoul reason, that Whitehall 

lie was an officer of the trainbands; and his was filled with the most corrupt ol manl ind, 

military dignity, though it might move the mirth and that of the great mum:, which the House of 

of gallants who had served a campaign in Coi ons had voted to the Crown since the 

Flanders, raised his character in his own eyes Restoration part had been embezzled bycun 

and in the eyes of his neighbours. Nor indeed ning politicians, and pari squandered on bul 

was his soldiership justly a subject of derision, foons and foreign courtesans His stout Eng 

In every eolllily llieie were elderly gent leinen lish he:nl swelled wiih indijMi.il ion ;il I he 

Who had seen service which was no child's Ihoiijdil lh.il ihe government ol his counliy 

play. One had been knighted l»y Charles the should be subject to French dictation, Being 

First, after the battle of Edgehill, Another himself generally an old Cavalier, 01 the son ol 

si ill wore ;i p.itc h over I he si ;ir which he li.nl ;in old ( ';i valier, he reflected wiih hillc I nsinl 

received al Naseby, A third had defended his menl on the ingratitude wiih which the Stuarts 

old house till Fairfax had blown in the door with had requited their best friends. Those who 

;i petard. The presence of these old Cavaliers, heard him grumble at the neglect with which 

with their old swords and holsters, and with he was treated, and at the profusion with which 

their old stories about Goring and Lunsford, wealth was lavished on ih<- bastards ol Nell 

gave to the musters of militia an earnest and Gwynn and Madam Carwell, would have sup 

warlike aspect which would otherwise have posed him ripe foi rebellion, But all this ill 

been wanting, Even those country gentlemen humour lasted only till the throne was really 

who were too young to have themselves ex in danger, h was, precisely when those whom 

changed blows with the cuirassiers of the Par the sovereign had loaded wiih wealth and 

li.iim hi had, from childhood, been surrounded honours shrank from his side- thai the country 

hy the traces of reeenl war, and fed wiih slories genl leinen, so surly and uiulinous in I In ,< sson 

of the martial exploits of their fathers and ol his prosperity, rallied round him in a body 

uncles Thus the character of the English 'rims, after mun ing twenty years at the 

esquire of the seventeenth century was, com misgovernment of Charles the second, ihey 

pounded of two elements which we seldom came to his rescue- in his extremity, when his 

01 never find united. His ignorance and un own Secretaries of State and the Lords oi his 

couthness, his low tastes and gross phrases, own Treasury had deserted him, and enabled 

would, in our lime, he considered as indicating him to gain a complete victory over the opposi 

;i nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian, tion; nor can there be any doubt thai ihey 



3 86 



THOMAS BABINC.TON, LORD MAC.ULAY 



would have shown equal loyally to his brother 
fames, if James would, even at the last mo- 
ment, have refrained from outraging their 
strongesl feeling. For there was one mstitu 
tion, and one only, which they priced even more 
than hereditary monarchy; and that institu- 
tion was the Church of England, Their love 
of the Church was not, indeed, the effect of 
studv or meditation. Lew among them could 
have given any reason, drawn from Scripture 
or ecclesiastical history, for adhering to her 
doctrines, her ritual, and her polity; nor were 
they, as a class, by any means strict observers 

of that code of morality which is common 
to all Christian sects. Hut the experience of 
many ages prows that men may he ready to 
tight to the death, and to persecute without 
pity, for a religion whose creed they i\ii not un- 
derstand, and whose precepts they habitually 
disobey. 

The rural clergy were even more vehement 
in Toryism than the rural gentry, and were a 
class scarcely less important. It is to be ob- 
served, however, that the individual clergyman, 
as compared with the individual gentleman. 



abolition of the monasteries deprived the 
Church at once of the greater part of her 
wealth, and of her predominance in the Upper 

House of Parliament. There was no longer 
an Abbot of Cdastonbury or an Abbot of Read- 
ing seated among the peers, and possessed of 
revenues equal to those of a powerful Earl. 
The princely splendour of William of Wykeham 
and of William of Wavnllete had disappeared. 
'The scarlet hat of the Cardinal, the silver cross 
of the Legate, were no more. The clergy had 
also lost the ascendency which is the natural 
reward Of superior mental cultivation. Once 
the circumstance that a man could read had 
raised a presumption that he was in orders. 
Hut, in an age which produced such laymen 
as William Cecil ami Nicholas Hacon, Roger 
Ascham and 'Thomas Smith, Walter Mildmay 
ami Francis Walsingham, there was no reason 
for calling away prelates from their dioceses to 
negotiate treaties, to superintend the finances, 
or to administer justice. The spiritual char- 
acter not only ceased to be a qualification for 
high civil office, but began to be regarded as a 
disqualification. Those worldly motives, there- 



then ranked much lower than in our days. . . . fore, which had formerly induced so many able, 



'The place of the clergyman in society had 
been completely changed by the Reformation. 
Before that event, ecclesiastics had formed the 
majority of the House of Lords, had, in wealth 
and splendour, equalled, and sometimes out 
shone, the greatest of the temporal barons, and 
had generally held the highest civil offices. 
Many of the Treasurers, and almost all the 
Chancellors of the Plantagenets, were bishops. 
'The Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and the 
Master of the Rolls were ordinarily churchmen. 
Churchmen transacted the most important 
diplomatic business. Indeed, all that large 
portion of the administration which rude and 
warlike nobles were incompetent to conduct 
was considered as especially belonging to 
divines. Men, therefore, who were averse to 
the life of camps, and who were, at the same 
time, desirous to rise in the state, commonly 
received the tonsure. Among them were sons 
of all the most illustrious families, and near 
kinsmen of the throne. Scroops and Nevilles, 
BourchierS, St affords, and Holes. To the re- 
ligious houses belonged the rents of immense 
domains, and all that large portion of the tithe 
which is now in the hands of lavmen. Down 
to the middle of the reign of Henry the Eighth, 
therefore, no line of life was so attractive to 
ambitious and covetous natures as the priest 
hood. Then came a violent revolution. 'The 



aspiring, and high born youths to assume the 
ecclesiastical habit, ceased to operate. Not one 
parish in two hundred then afforded what a 
man of family considered as a maintenance. 
'There were still indeed pri.es in the Church: 
but they were few: and even the highest were 
mean, when compared with the glory which 
had once surrounded the princes of the hie- 
rarchy. The state kept by Parker and Grindal 
seemed beggarly to those who remembered 
the imperial pomp of Wolsey, his palaces, 
which had become the favourite abodes of 
royalty, Whitehall and Hampton Court, the 
three sumptuous tables daily Spread in his 
refectory, the forty four gorgeous copes in his 
chapel, his running footmen in rich liveries, 
and his bodyguards with gilded poleaxes. 
'Thus the sacerdotal office lost its attraction 
for the higher classes. During the century 
which followed the accession of Elisabeth, 
scarce a single person of noble descent look 
orders. At the close of the reign of Charles 
the Second, two sons of peers were Bishops; 
four or live sons of peers were priests, and held 
valuable preferment; but these rare exceptions 
did not take away the reproach which lay on 
the bodv. The clergy were regarded as. on the 
whole, a plebeian class. And, indeed, for one 
who made the figure oi a gentleman, ten were 
mere menial servants. A large proportion of 



THE HISTORY OF KN(JLANI) 



387 



those divines who had no benefices, or whose to (luce or four generations of scoffers. With 

benefices wen- too Bmall to afford ;i comfortable his cure he was expected to take a wife. The 

revenue, lived in the houses of laymen. Ii had wife had ordinarily Ik-cm in the patron's ser 

long been evidenl that this practice tended vice; and it was well if she was not suspected 

to degrade the priestly character. Laud had <>f standing t<><> high in the patron's favour, 

exerted himself to effect a change ; and Charles [ndeed, the nature of the matrimonial con 

the First had repeatedly issued positive orders nections which the clergymen of that age 

that none lull men of high rank should presume were in Hie habit OJ forming is llie mosl certain 

to keep domestic chaplains. But these injunc- indication <>r the place which the order held 

lions had heiome obsolete. Indeed, during in t In- social system. An Oxonian, writing a few 

the domination of the Puritans, many of the months after the death of Charles the Second 

ejected ministers of the Church of England complained bitterly, nol only that thee itry 

could obtain bread and shelter only by attach- attorney and the country apothecary looked 

in^ themselves to the households of Royalist down with di.dain on the country clergyman 

gentlemen; and the habits which had been but thai one of the lessons most earnestly 

formed in (hose limes of trouble COnl inued long inculcated on every girl of honourable family 

after the tceslahlishmcnl of monarchy and was lo give no encoura^eincnl lo a lover in 

episcopacy, [n the mansions of men of liberal orders, and that, if any young lady forgot this 

sentiments and cultivated understandings, the precept, she was almost as much disgraced as 

chaplain was doubtless treated with urbanity byan illicit amour. Clarendon, who assuredly 

and kindness. His conversation, his literary bore no ill will to the priesthood, mentions it as 

assistance, his spiritual advice, were considered a sign of the confusion of ranks whil h the great 

as an ample return for his food, his lodging, rebellion had produced, thai some damsels 

and his stipend. Bui this was not the general of noble families had bestowed themselves on 

feeling of the country gentlemen, 'The coarse divines. A waiting woman was generally con 

and ignorant Bquire, who thoughl thai it be- sidered as the most suitable helpmate for a 

longed to his dignity (<> have- grace said every parson. Queen Elizabeth, as head of the 

day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canon Church, had given whal seemed lo l>e a formal 

ICals, found means lo reconcile- dignity with sane lion lo (his prejudice, by issuing special 

economy. A young l.cvilc such was the orders thai no Clergyman should presume to 

phrase then in use mijdil he- had for his espouse a servanl girl, without the consent oi 

board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year, the master or mistress. During several genera 

and might not only perform his own professional (ions accordingly the relation between divines 

functions, might nol only Ik- the mosl patienl and handmaidens was a theme for endless jesl ; 

of huits and of listeners, mighl nol only Ik- nor would ii he easy to find, in the comedy of 

always ready in line weal her for howls, and in Ihe Seventeenth century, a single instance of a 

rainy weather foi shovel hoard, hul mighl also clergyman who wins a spouse ahove Ihe rank 

save ihe- expense of a gardener or of a groom, of a cook. Even so late as the time of < reorge 

Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the- the Second, ihe keenesl of all ohservers of life 

apricots; and sometimes he CUrried the coach- and manners, himself a priest, remarked that, 

horses. He cast up the farrier's hills. He in a greal household, Ihe chaplain was Ihe 

walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. resource of a. lady's maid whose- character had 

lie was permitted to dine with the family; been blown upon, and who was therefore forced 

hui he was expected to content himself with ilu- to give up hopes of catching the steward. 

plainest fare, lie might fill himself with the In general the divine who quitted his chap 

corned beef and the carrots: hut, as soon as the lainshipfora benefice and a wife found thai he 

(arts and cheese cakes made their appearance, had only exchanged One ( lass of vexatious for 

he quitted his seal, and stood aloof (ill he was another. I lardly one living in fifty enabled Ihe 

summoned lo return lhanks for Ihe repast, inc umhenl to bring up a family comfortably, 

from a greal part of which he had heen ex- As children multiplied and grew, the household 

• luded. of the priest became more and more beggarlj 

Perhaps, after some years of service, he was Holes appeared more and more plainly in 

presented to a living sumcienl to supporl him; the (hatch of his parsonage and in his single 

but he often found it necessary to purchase his cassock, often it was only hy toiling on 

preferment by a species of Simony, which fur- his glebe, by feeding swine, and hy load 

rushed an inexhaustible Bubject of pleasantry ing dung-carts, that he could obtain daily 



3 88 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



bread; nor did his utmost exertions always 
prevent the bailiffs from taking bis concordance 
and liis inkstand in execution. It was a white 
day on which he was admitted into the kitchen 

of a great house, and regaled by the servants 
with cold meal and ale. His children were 
brought up like the children of the neigh- 
bouring peasantry. His hoys followed the 
plough; and his girls went out to service. 
Study he found impossible; for the advowson 
of his living would hardly have sold for a 
sum sufficient to purchase a good theological 

library; and he might In- considered as un- 
usually lucky if he had ten or twelve dog- 
eared volumes among the pots and pans on his 
shelves. Even a keen and strong intellect 
might be expected to rust in so unfavourable 
a situation. 

Assuredly there was at that time no lack in 
the English Church of ministers distinguished 
by abilities and learning. But it is to be ob- 
served (hat these ministers were not scattered 
among the rural population. They were 
brought together at a few places where the 

means of acquiring knowledge were abundant, 
and where tin- opportunities of vigorous 
intellectual exercise were frequent. At such 
places were to be found divines qualified by 

parts, by eloquence, by wide knowledge of 
literature, of science, and of life, to defend their 
Church victoriously against heretics and scep- 
tics, to command the attention of frivolous and 
worldly congregations, to guide the delibera- 
tions of senates, and to make religion respect 
able, even in the most dissolute of courts. 
Some laboured lo fathom the abysses of meta- 
physical theology; some were deeply versed 
in biblical criticism; and some threw light on 
the darkest parts of ecclesiastical history. 
Some proved themselves consummate masters 
of logic. Some cultivated rhetoric with such 
assiduity and success that their discourses are 
still justly valued as models of style. These 
eminent men were to be found, with scarcely 
a single exception, at the Universities, at the 
great Cathedrals, or in the capital. Harrow 
had lately died at Cambridge, and Pearson 
had gone thence to the episcopal bench. Cud- 
worlh and Henry More were still living there. 
South and Pocockc, Jane and Aldrich, were at 
Oxford, I'ridcaux was in (he close of Norwich, 
and Whitby in the close of Salisbury. Hut it 
was chiefly by the London clergy, who were 
always spoken of as a class apart, that the 
fame of their profession for learning and elo- 
quence was upheld. The principal pulpits of 



the metropolis were occupied about this time 
by a crowd of distinguished men, from among 
whom was selected a large proportion of the 
rulers of the Church. Sherlock preached at 
the Temple, Tillotson at Lincoln's Inn, Wake 
and Jeremy Collier at Cray's Inn, Burnet at the 
Rolls, Stillinglleel at Saint Paul's Cathedral, 
Patrick at Saint Paul's in Covent Garden, 
Fowler at Saint Giles's, Cripplegate, Sharp at 
Saint Giles's in the Fields, Tenison at Saint 
Martin's, Sprat at Saint Margaret's, beveridge 
at Saint Peter's in Cornhill. Of these twelve 

men, all of high note in ecclesiastical history, 

ten became bishops, and four Archbishops. 

Meanwhile almost the only important theologi- 
cal works which came forth from a rural par- 
sonage were those of George Hull, afterward 
Bishop of Saint David's; and Hull never would 
have produced those works, had he not in- 
herited an estate, by the sale of which he was 
enabled to collect a library, such as probably no 
other country clergyman in England possessed. 
Thus the Anglican priesthood was divided 
into two sections, which, in acquirements, in 
manners, and in social position, differed widely 
from each other. One section, trained for 
cities and courts, comprised men familiar with 
all ancient and modern learning; men able to 
encounter 1 [obbes or Bossuet at all the weapons 
of controversy; men who could, in their sir 
mons, set forth the majesty and beauty of 
Christianity with such justness of thought, 
and such energy of language, that the indolent 
Charles roused himself to listen, and the fas 
tidious Buckingham forgot to sneef; men 

whose address, politeness, and knowledge of 
the world qualified them to manage the con- 
sciences of the wealthy and noble; men 
with whom Halifax loved to discuss the inter- 
ests of empires, and from whom Drvdcn was 
not ashamed to own that he had learned to 
write. The other section was destined lo ruder 
and humbler service. It was dispersed over 
the country, and consisted chiefly of persons 

not at all wealthier, and not much more re- 
fined, than small farmers or upper servants. 
Yet it was in these rustic priests, who derived 
but a scanty subsistence from their tithe sheaves 
and lithe pigs, and who had not the smallest 
chance of ever attaining high professional hon- 
ours, that the professional spirit was strongest. 
******* 
('■real as has been the change in the rural 
life of England since the Revolution, the change 
which has come to pass in the cities is still 
more amazing. At present above a sixth part 



TIIL HISTORY OF FNGLAND 



389 



of the nation is crowded into provincial towns 
of more than thirty thousand inhabitants. 
In the reign of Charles the Second no provincial 

town in the kingdom contained thirty thousand 
inhabitants; and only four provincial towns 
contained so many as ten thousand inhabitants. 

******* 
The position of London, relatively to the 
other towns of the empire, was, in the time of 
Charles the Second, far higher than at present. 
For at present the population of London is 
little more than six times the population of 
Manchester or of Liverpool, In the days of 
Charles the Second the population of London 
was more than seventeen times the population 
of Bristol or of Norwich. It may be doubted 
whether any other instance can be mentioned 
of a great kingdom in which the first city was 
more than seventeen times as large as the 
second. There is reason to believe that, in 
1685, London had been, during about half a 
century, the most populous capital in Europe. 
The inhabitants, who are now at least nineteen 
hundred thousand, were then probably little 
more than half a million. London had in the 
world only one commercial rival, now long 
ago outstripped, the mighty and opulent Am- 
sterdam. English writers boasted of the 
forest of masts and yardarms which covered 
the river from the bridge to the Tower, and of 
tin; stupendous sums which were collected at 
the Custom I louse in Thames Street. Thereis, 
indeed, no doubt that the trade of the metropolis 
then bore a far greater proportion than at pres- 
ent to the whole trade of the country; yet to 
our generation the honest vaunting of our 
ancestors must appear almost ludicrous. The 
shipping which they thought incredibly great 
appears not to have exceeded seventy thou- 
sand tons. This was, indeed, then more than 
a third of the whole tonnage of the kingdom, 
but is now less than a fourth of the tonnage 
of Newcastle, and is nearly equalled by the 
tonnage of the steam vessels of the Thames. 
The customs of London amounted, in 1685, 
to about three hundred and thirty thousand 
pounds a year. In our time the net duty 
paid annually, at the same place, exceeds ten 
millions. 

Whoever examines the maps of London 
which were published toward the close of the 
reign of Charles the Second will see that only 
the nucleus of the present capital then existed. 
The town did not, as now, fade by imper- 
ceptible degrees into the country. No long 
avenues of villas, embowered in lilacs and 



laburnums, extended from the great centre 
of wealth and civilisation almost to the boun- 
daries of Middlesex and far into the he.nl .,1 
Kent and Surrey. In the east, no part of the 
immense line of warehouses and artiln ial lakes 
which now stretches from the Tower to black- 
wall had even been projected. On the west, 
scarcely one of those stately piles of building 
which are inhabited by the noble and wealthy 
was in existence; and Chelsea, which is now 
peopled by more than forty thousand human 
beings, was a quiet country village with about 
a thousand inhabitants. On the north, cattle 
fed, and sportsmen wandered with dogs and 
guns, over the site of the borough of Maryle- 
bone, and over far the greater part of the space 
now covered by the boroughs of I'insbury 
anc] of the Tower Hamlets. Islington was 
almost a solitude; and poets loved to contrast 
its silence and repose with the din and turmoil 
of the monster London. On the south the 
capital is now connected with its suburb by 
several bridges, not inferior in magnificence and 
Solidity to the noblest works of the Caesars. 
In 1685, a single line of irregular arches, over- 
hung by piles of mean and crazy houses, and 
garnished, after a fashion worthy of the naked 
barbarians of Hahomy, with scores of moulder 
ing heads, impeded the navigation of the river. 
Of the metropolis, the City, properly so 
called, was the most important division. At 
the time of the Restoration it had been built, 
for the most part, of wood and plaster; the 
few bricks that were used were ill baked; the 
booths where goods wen: exposed to sale pro 
jected far into the streets, and wen- overhung 
by the upper stories. A few specimens of this 
architecture may still be seen in those dis- 
tricts which were not reached by the great fire. 
That fire had, in a few days, covered a space of 
less than a square mile with the ruins of eighty- 
nine churches and of thirteen thousand houses, 
but the City had risen again with a celerity 
which had excited the admiration of neighbouring 
countries. Unfortunately, the old lines of the 
streets had been to a great extent preserved; 
and those lines, originally traced in an age 
when even princesses performed their journeys 
on horseback, were often too narrow to allow 
wheeled carriages to pass each other with ease, 
and were therefore; ill adapted for the- residene e 
of wealthy persons in an age when a coach 
and six was a fashionable luxury. The style: of 
building was, however, far superior to that of 
the City which had perished. The eirdinary 
material was brick, of much better quality 



3 ( )o 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



than had formerly been used. On the sites 
of the. ancient parish churches Had arisen a 

multitude of new domes, towers, and spires 
which bore the mark of the fertile genius of 
Wren. In every place save one the traces of 
the great devastation had been completely 
effaced. Hut the crowds of workmen, the 
Scaffolds, and the masses of hewn stone were 
still to he seen where the noblest of Protestant 
temples was slowly rising on the ruins of the 
old Cathedral of Saint Paul. 

******* 
He who then rambled to what is now tin' 
gayest and most Crowded part of Regent Street 
found himself in a solitude, and was sometimes 
so Fortunate as to have a shot at a woodcock. 
On the north the Oxford road ran between 
hedges. Three or four hundred yards to the 
south were the garden walls of a few gnat 
houses which were considered as quite out of 
town. On the west was a meadow renowned 
for a spring from which, long afterwards, Con- 
duit Street was named. On the east was a field 
not to be passed without a shudder by any 
Londoner of that age. There, as in a place 
far from the haunts of men, had been dug, 
twenty years before, when the great plague was 
raging, a pit into which the dead carls had 
nightly shot corpses by scores. It was popularly 
believed that the earth was deeply tainted with 
infection, and could not be disturbed without 
imminent risk to human life. No foundations 
were laid there till two generations had passed 

without any return of the pestilence, and till 
the ghastly spot had long been surrounded by 
buildings. 

We should greatly err if we were to suppose 
that any of the streets and squares then bore 

the same aspect as at present. The great 
majority of the houses, indeed, have, since 
that time, been wholly, or in great part, rebuilt. 
If the most fashionable parts of tin' capital 
could be placed before us such as they then 
were, we should be disgusted by their squalid 
appearance, and poisoned by their noisome 
atmosphere. 

In Covent Garden a filthy and noisy market 
was held close to the dwellings of the great. 
I'Yuit women screamed, carters fought, cab- 
bage stalks and rotten apples accumulated in 
heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of 
Berkshire and of the Bishop of Durham. 

The centre of Lincoln's Inn Fields was an 
open space when- the rabble congregated every 
evening, within a few yards of Cardigan House 
and Winchester House, to hear mountebanks 



harangue, to see bears dame, and to set dogs 
at oxen. Rubbish was shot in every part of 
the area. EiorSeS were exercised there. The 

beggars were as noisy and importunate as in 
the worst governed cities of the Continent. 
A Lincoln's Inn mumper was a proverb. The 
whole fraternity knew the arms and liveries of 
every charitably disposed grandee in the neigh- 
bourhood, and, as soon as his lordship's coach 
and six appeared, came hopping and crawling 
in crowds tO persecute him. These disorders 
lasted, in spite Of many accidents, and of siime 
legal proceedings, till, in the reign of George 

the Second, Sir Joseph |ekvll. Master of the 
Rolls, was knocked down ami nearly killed in 
the middle of the square. Then at length 
palisades were set up, and a pleasant garden 
laid out. 

Saint James's Square was a receptacle for all 
the offal and cinders, for all the dead cats ami 
dead dogs of Westminster. At one time a 
cudgel player kept the ring there. At another 
time an impudent squatter settled himself 
there, and built a shed for rubbish under the 
windows of the gilded saloons in which the 
first magnates of the realm, Norfolk, Ormond, 

Rent, ami Pembroke, gave banquets and balls. 
It was not till these nuisances had lasted through 
a whole generation, and till much had been 
written about them, that the inhabitants 
applied to Parliament for permission to put up 
rails, ami to plant trees. 

When such was the state of the region in- 
habited by the most luxurious portion of soci- 
ety, we may easily believe that the great body 
of the population suffered what would now be 
considered as insupportable grievances. The 

pavement was detestable: all foreigners cried 
shame upon it. The drainage was so bad that 
in rainy weather the gutters soon became 
torrents. Several facetious poets have com- 
memorated the fury with which these black 
rivulets roared down Snow Hill and Ludgate 
Hill, bearing to Fleet Hitch a vast tribute of 
animal ami vegetable filth from the stalls of 
butchers and green -grocers. This flood was 
profusely thrown to right and left by coaches 
and carts. To keep as far from the carriage 
road as possible was therefore the wish of every 
pedestrian. The mild and timid gave the 
wall. The bold and athletic took it. If two 
roisterers met, they cocked their hats in each 
other's faces, and pushed each other about till 
the weaker was shoved towards the kennel. 
If he was a mere bully he sneaked off, mutter- 
ing that he should find a time. If he was 



TIIK HISTORY OF LNGLAND 



39 ] 



pugnacious, the encounter probably ended in 
a duel behind Montague House. 

The houses were not numbered. There 

would indeed have been little advantage in 

numbering them; for of the coachmen, chair- 
men, porters, ami errand hoys of London, a 
very small proportion could read. It was 
im i r.sary to use marks which the most ignorant 
Could understand. The shops were therefore 
distinguished by painted or sculptured signs, 
which gave a gay and grotesque aspect to 

the streets. The walk from Charing Cross to 
Whitechapel lay through an endless succession 
of Saracens' Heads, Royal Oaks, Rluc Bears, 
and Golden Lambs, which disappeared when 
they were no longer required for the direction 
of the common people. 

When the evening closed in, die difficulty 
and danger of walking about I -ondon became 
serious indeed. The garret windows were 
opened, and pails were emptied, with little 
regard to those who wen- passing below. 

Falls, bruises, and broken bones wen- of con- 
slanl occurrence. For, till the last year of the 
reign of Charles the Second, most of the streets 
were left in profound darkness. Thieves and 
robbers plied their trade with impunity: yet 
they were hardly so terrible to pea< eable ( ili/.ens 
as another class of ruffians. It was a favourite 
amusement of dissolute young gentlemen to 
swagger by night about the town, breaking 
windows, upsetting sedans, beating quiet men, 
and offering rude caresses to pretty women. 
Several dynasties of these- tyrants had, since the 
Restoration, domineered over the streets. The 
Muns and Tityre Tus hat] given place to the 
1 1' ' tors, and the I lectors had been recently suc- 
ceeded by the Scourers. At a later period arose 
the Nicker, the JIawe ubile-, and the yet more 
dreaded name of Mohawk. The machinery 

lot keeping the peace was utterly contemptible. 

There was an Act of Common Council which 
provided that more than a thousand watch- 
men should be constantly on the alert in the 
city, from sunset to sunrise, and that every 
inhabitant should take his turn of fluty. Rut 
tins Act was negligently executed, lew of 
those who were summoned left their homes; 
and those few generally found it more agree- 
able to tipple in alehouses than to pace the 

Streets. 

It ought to be noticed that, in the last year of 
the reign of Charles the Second, began a great 
change in the police of London, a change which 
has perhaps added as much to the happiness 
of the body of the people as revolutions of much 



greater fame. An ingenious projector, named 
Ldward Ileming, obtained letters patent con 
veying to him, for a term of years, the: exclusive 
right of lighting up London, lie- undertook, 

for a moderate consideration, to place a light 

before every tenth door, cm moonless nights, 
from Michaelmas to Lady Lay, and from six 
to twelve- of the clock. Those who now see 
the capital all the- year round, from dusk to 
dawn, blazing with a splendour beside- which 
the: illuminations for La Ilogue and Rlenheim 
would have looked pale, may perhaps smile to 
think of Heming's lanterns, which glimmered 
feebly before- one house- in ten during a small 
part of one night in three. Rut sue h was not 
the feeling of his contemporaries. His scheme 
was enthusiastically applauded, and furiously 
attacked. The: friends of improvement extolled 
him as the greatest of all the benefactors of his 
city. What, they asked, were the boasted in- 
ventions of Archimedes, when compared with 
the achievement of the man who had turned 
the nocturnal shades into noonday? In spite 

Of these cloepienl eulogies I he cause- of darkness 

was not left undefended. There wen- fools 
in that age: who opposed the introduction of 
what was called the new light as strenuously 
as fools in our age have opposed the- introdui tion 

of vaccination and railroads, as strenuously as 
the fools of an age anterior to the dawn of 

history doubtless opposed the introduction of 
the plough and of alphabetical writing. Many 
years after the dale of Heming's patent there: 
were extensive districts in which no lamp was 
seen. 

We may easily imagine what, in such times, 
must have been the state of the quarters e ( f 
London which were: peopled by the outcasts 

of society. Among those quarters one- had 

attained a scandalous preeminence. On the 
confines of the: City and the Temple had been 

founded, in the thirteenth century, a House of 
Carmelite Friars, distinguished by their while 
hoods. The precinct of this house had, before 
the Reformation, been a sanctuary for crimi- 
nals, and still retained the- privilege of protecting 

debtors from arrest. I used vents consequently 
were to be found in every dwelling, from cellar 
to garret. Of these a large proportion were 
knaves and libertines, and were followed to 
their asylum by women more abandoned than 
themselves. The civil power was unable to 
keep order in a district swarming with such 
inhabitants; and thus White-friars became the 
favourite resort of all who wished to be eman- 
cipated from the restraints of the law. Though 



392 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



the immunities legally belonging to the place 
extended only to cases of debt, cheats, false 
witnesses, forgers, and highwaymen found 
refuge there. For amidst a rabble so desper- 
ate no peace officer's life was in safety. At the 
cry of "Rescue," bullies with swords and cud- 
gels, and termagant hags with spits and broom- 
sticks, poured forth by hundreds; and the 
intruder was fortunate if he escaped back into 
Fleet Street, hustled, stripped, and pumped 
upon. Even the warrant of the Chief-justice 
of England could not be executed without the 
help of a company of musketeers. Such relics 
of the barbarism of the darkest ages were to be 
found within a short walk of the chambers 
where Somers was studying history and law, 
of the chapel where Tillotson was preaching, 
of the coffee-house where Dryden was passing 
judgment on poems and plays, and of the hall 
where the Royal Society was examining the 
astronomical system of Isaac Newton. 
******* 

The coffee-house must not be dismissed with 
a cursory mention. It might, indeed, at that 
time have been not improperly called a most 
important political institution. No Parliament 
had sat for years. The municipal council of 
the city had ceased to speak the sense of the 
citizens. Public meetings, harangues, resolu- 
tions, and the rest of the modern machinery 
of agitation had not yet come into fashion. 
Nothing resembling the modern newspaper 
existed. In such circumstances the coffee- 
houses were the chief organs through which 
the public opinion of the metropolis vented 
itself. 

The first of these establishments had been 
set up, in the time of the Commonwealth, by a 
Turkey merchant, who had acquired among the 
Mahometans a taste for their favourite beverage. 
The convenience of being able to make ap- 
pointments in any part of the town, and of 
being able to pass evenings socially at a very 
small charge, was so great that the fashion 
spread fast. Every man of the upper or middle 
class went daily to his coffee-house to learn the 
news and to discuss it. Every coffee-house 
had one or more orators to whose eloquence the 
crowd listened with admiration, and who soon 
became, what the journalists of our time have 
been called, a fourth Estate of the realm. The 
court had long seen with uneasiness the growth 
of this new power in the state. An attempt 
had been made, during Danby's administration, 
to close the coffee-houses. But men of all 
parties missed their usual places of resort so 



much that there was a universal outcry. The 
government did not venture, in opposition to 
a feeling so strong and general, to enforce a 
regulation of which the legality might well be 
questioned. Since that time ten years had 
elapsed, and during those years the number 
and influence of the coffee-houses had been 
constantly increasing. Foreigners remarked 
that the coffee-house was that which especially 
distinguished London from all other cities; 
that the coffee-house was the Londoner's 
home, and that those who wished to find a 
gentleman commonly asked, not whether he 
lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but 
whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rain- 
bow. Nobody was excluded from these places 
who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet 
every rank and profession, and every shade 
of religious and political opinion, had its own 
headquarters. There were houses near Saint 
James's Park where fops congregated, their 
heads and shoulders covered with black or 
flaxen wigs, not less ample than those which 
are now worn by the Chancellor and by the 
Speaker of the House of Commons. The wig 
came from Paris; and so did the rest of the fine 
gentleman's ornaments, his embroidered coat, 
his fringed gloves, and the tassels which upheld 
his pantaloons. The conversation was in that 
dialect which, long after it had ceased to be 
spoken in fashionable circles, continued, in the 
mouth of Lord Foppington, to excite the mirth 
of theatres. The atmosphere was like that of a 
perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any other form 
than that of richly scented snuff was held in 
abomination. If any clown, ignorant of the 
usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers 
of the whole assembly and the short answers 
of the waiters soon convinced him that he had 
better go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, would 
he have had far to go. For, in general, the 
coffee-rooms reeked with tobacco like a guard- 
room ; and strangers sometimes expressed their 
surprise that so many people should leave their 
own firesides to sit in the midst of eternal fog 
and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more 
constant than at Will's. That celebrated house, 
situated between Covent Garden and Bow 
Street, was sacred to polite letters. There the 
talk was about poetical justice and the unities 
of place and time. There was a faction for 
Perrault and the moderns, a faction for Boileau 
and the ancients. One group debated whether 
Paradise Lost ought not to have been in rhyme. 
To another an envious poetaster demonstrated 
that Venice Preserved ought to have been hooted 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



393 



from the stage. Under no roof was a greater 
variety of figures to be seen. There were 
Earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cas- 
socks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish 
lads from the Universities, translators and 
index-makers in ragged coats of frieze. The 
great press was to get near the chair where John 
Dryden sat. In winter that chair was always 
in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it 
stood in the balcony. To bow to the Laureate, 
and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy 
or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was 
thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff- 
box was an honour sufficient to turn the head of 
a young enthusiast. There were coffee-houses 
where the first medical men might be con- 
sulted. Dr. John Radcliffe, who, in the year 
1685, rose to the largest practice in London, 
came daily, at the hour when the Exchange was 
full, from his house in Bow Street, then a 
fashionable part of the capital, to Garraway's, 
and was to be found, surrounded by surgeons and 
apothecaries, at a particular table. There were 
Puritan coffee-houses where no oath was heard, 
and where lank-haired men discussed election 
and reprobation through their noses; Jew 
coffee-houses where dark-eyed money changers 
from Venice and from Amsterdam greeted each 
other; and popish coffee-houses where, as good 
Protestants believed, Jesuits planned, over 
their cups, another great fire, and cast silver 
bullets to shoot the King. 

These gregarious habits had no small share 
in forming the character of the Londoner of 
that age. He was, indeed, a different being 
from the rustic Englishman. There was not 
then the intercourse which now exists between 
the two classes. Only very great men were in 
the habit of dividing the year between town and 
country. Few esquires came to the capital thrice 
in their lives. Nor was it yet the practice of all 
citizens in easy circumstances to breathe the fresh 
air of the fields and woods during some weeks of 
every summer. A cockney in a rural village was 
stared at as much as if he had intruded into a 
Kraal of Hottentots. On the other hand, when 
the Lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire 
manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was as 
easily distinguished from the resident popula- 
tion as a Turk or a Lascar. His dress, his gait, 
his accent, the manner in which he gazed at the 
shops, stumbled into the gutters, ran against 
the porters, and stood under the waterspouts, 
marked him out as an excellent subject for the 
operations of swindlers and banterers. Bullies 
jostled him into the kennel. Hackney coach- 



men splashed him from head to foot. Thieves 
explored with perfect security the huge pockets 
of his horseman's coat, while he stood entranced 
by the splendour of the Lord Mayor's show. 
Money droppers, sore from the cart's tail, 
introduced themselves to him, and appeared 
to him the most honest friendly gentlemen 
that he had ever seen. Painted women, the 
refuse of Lewkner Lane and Whetstone Park, 
passed themselves on him for countesses and 
maids of honour. If he asked his way to Saint 
James's, his informants sent him to Mile End. 
If he went into a shop, he was instantly dis- 
cerned to be a fit purchaser of everything that 
nobody else would buy, of second-hand em- 
broidery, copper rings, and watches that would 
not go. If he rambled into any fashionable 
coffee-house, he became a mark for the insolent 
derision of fops and the grave waggery of 
Templars. Enraged and mortified, he soon 
returned to his mansion, and there, in the 
homage of his tenants and the conversation of 
his boon companions, found consolation for the 
vexations and humiliations which he had under- 
gone. There he was once more a great man, 
and saw nothing above himself except when at 
the assizes he took his seat on the bench near 
the judge, or when at the muster of the militia 
he saluted the Lord Lieutenant. 

The chief cause which made the fusion of the 
different elements of society so imperfect was the 
extreme difficulty which our ancestors found in 
passing from place to place. Of all inventions, 
the alphabet and the printing-press alone ex- 
cepted, those inventions which abridge distance 
have done most for the civilisation of our 
species. Every improvement of the means of 
locomotion benefits mankind morally and in- 
tellectually as well as materially, and not only 
facilitates the interchange of the various pro- 
ductions of nature and art, but tends to remove 
national and provincial antipathies, and to bind 
together all the branches of the great human 
family. In the seventeenth century the in- 
habitants of London were, for almost every 
practical purpose, farther from Reading than 
they now are from Edinburgh, and farther from 
Edinburgh than they now are from Vienna. 

The subjects of Charles the Second were not, 
it is true, quite unacquainted with that principle 
which has, in our own time, produced an un- 
precedented revolution in human affairs, which 
has enabled navies to advance in face of wind 
and tide, and brigades of troops, attended by 
all their baggage and artillery, to traverse 
kingdoms at a pace equal to that of the fleetest 



394 



THOMAS BAB1NGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



race horse. The Marquess of Worcester had 
recently observed the expansive power of 
moisture rarefied by heat. After many ex- 
periments he had succeeded in constructing a 
rude steam engine, which he called a fire water 
work, and which he pronounced to be an ad- 
mirable and most forcible instrument of pro- 
pulsion. But the Marquess was suspected to 
be a madman, and known to be a Papist. His 
inventions, therefore, found no favourable re- 
ception. His fire water work might, perhaps, 
furnish matter for conversation at a meeting of 
the Royal Society, bul was not applied to any 
practical purpose. There wen' no railways, ex- 
cept a few made of timber, on wliieh coals were 
canied from the mouths of the Northumbrian 

pits to the banks of theTyne. There was very 

little internal communication by water. A few 

attempts had been made to deepen and embank 

the natural streams, but with slender success. 

Hardly a single navigable canal had been even 

projected. The English of that day were in the 
habit of talking with mingled admiration and 
despair of the immense trench by which Lewis 
the Fourteenth had made a junction between 
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. They 
little thought that their country would, in the 
course of a few generations, lie intersected, at 
the cost of private adventurers, by artificial 
rivers making up more than four times the 

length of the Thames, the Severn, and the 

Trent together. 

It was by the highways that both travellers 
and goods generally passed from place to place; 
and those highways appear to have been far 
worse than might have been expected from the 
degree of wealth and civilisation which the 
nation had even then attained. On the best 
lines of communication the ruts wire deep, the 
descents precipitous, and the way often such 
as it was hardly possible to distinguish, in the 
dusk, from the uninclosed heath and fen which 
lay on both sides. Ralph Thorcsby, the an- 
tiquary, was in danger of losing his way 
on the great North road, between Harnby 
Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost his 
way between Doncaster and York. Pepys 

and his wife, travelling in their own coach, 
lost their wav between Newbury and Read- 
ing. In the course of the same tour tiny 
lost their way near Salisbury, and were in dan- 
ger of having to pass the night on the plain. 
It was only in fine weather that the whole 
breadth of the road was available for wheeled 
vehicles. Often the mud lay deep on the right 
and the left; and only a narrow track of firm 



ground rose above the quagmire. At such 
times obstructions and quarrels were frequent, 

and the path was sometimes blocked up during 
a long time by carriers, neither of whom would 
break the way. It happened, almost everj 
day, that coat lies stuck fast, until a team of 
cattle could be procured from some neigh- 
bouring farm to tug them out of the slough. 
But in bad seasons the traveller had to en- 
counter inconveniences still more serious. 
Thoresby, who was in the habit of travelling 
between Leeds and the capital, has recorded, 
in his Diary, such a series of perils and dis 
asters as might suffice for a journey to the 
Frozen Ocean or to the Desert of Sahara. 
On one occasion he learned that the floods were 
OUt between Ware and London, that passengers 
had to swim for their lives, and that a higgler 
had perished in the attempt to cross. In con- 
sequence of these tidings lie turned out of the 
high mad, and was conducted across some 
meadows, where it was necessary for him to 
ride to the saddle skirts in water. In the 
course of another joumev he narrowly escaped 
being swept awav by an inundation of the Trent. 
lie was afterwards detained at Stamford four 
days, on account of the state of the roads, and 

then ventured to proceed only because fourteen 
members of the House of Commons, who were 

going up in a body to Parliament with guides 
and numerous attendants, took him into their 
Company. On the roads of Derbyshire, trav- 
ellers were in constant fear for their Decks, 
and were frequently compelled to alight and 
lead their beasts. The great route' through 
Wales to Holyhead was in such a state that, in 
1685, a viceroy, going to Ireland, was live hours 
in travelling fourteen miles, from Saint Asaph 

to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris 

he was forced to walk great part of tin- way; 
and his lady was carried in a litter. His 
coach was, with much difficulty, and by the 
help of many hands, brought after him entire. 
In general, carriages wen- taken to pieces at 
Conway, and borne, on the shoulders of stout 
Welsh peasants, to the Menai Straits. In some 
parts of Kent and Sussex none but the strongest 
horses could, in winter, get through the bog, 
in which, at every step, they sank dec]). The 
markets were often inaccessible during several 
months. It is said that the fruits of the earth 
were sometimes Buffered to rot in one place, 
while in another place, distant only a few miles, 
the supply fell far short of the demand. The 
w heeled carriage's were, in this district, generally 
pulled by oxen. When Prince George of Den- 



THE HISTORY OF E NO LAND 



395 



mark visited the stately mansion of Petworth 
in wet weather, he was six hours in going nine 

miles; and it was necessary that a body of 
Sturdy hinds should be on each side of his 

coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages 

which conveyed his retinue, several were upset 
and injured. A Idler from one of the party 
has been preserved, in which the unfortunate 
courtier complains that, during fourteen hours, 
he never once alighted except when his coach 
was overturned or stuck fast in the mud. 
******* 

On the besl highways heavy articles were, 
in the lime of Charles the Second, generally 
conveyed from place; to place by stage wagons. 
In the straw of these; vehicles nestled a crowd 
of passengers, who could nol afford to travel 
by coach or on horseback, and who were pre- 
vented by infirmity, or by the weight of their 
luggage, from going on foot. The expense of 
transmitting heavy goods in this way was 
enormous. From London to Birmingham the 
charge was seven pounds a ton; from London 
to Exeter, twelve pounds a ton. This was 
about fifteen pence a ton for every mile, more 
by a third than was afterwards charged on 
turnpike roads, and fifteen times what is now 
demanded by railway companies. The cost of 
conveyance amounted to a prohibitory tax on 
many useful articles. Coal in particular was 
never seen except in the districts where it was 
produced, or in the districts to which it could 
be carried by sea, and was indeed always 
known in the south of England by the name 
of sea coal. 

On by-roads, and generally throughout the 
country north of York and west of Exeter, 
goods were carried by long trains of pack 
horses. These strong and patient beasts, the 
breed of which is now extinct, were attended by 
a class of men who seem to have borne much 
resemblance to the Spanish muleteers. A trav- 
eller of humble condition often found it con- 
venient to perform a journey mounted on a 
pack saddle between two baskets, under the 
care of these hardy guides. The expense of 
this mode of conveyance was small. But the 
caravan moved at a foot's pace; and in winter 
the cold was often insupportable. 

The rich commonly travelled in their own 
carriages, with at least four horses. Cotton, 
the fa( ei ions poet, attempted to go from London 
to the Peak with a single pair, but found at 
Saint Albans that the journey would be insup- 
portably tedious, and altered his plan. A 
coach and six is in our time never seen, except 



as part of some pageant. The frequent men- 
tion therefore of such equipages in old books is 
likely to mislead us. We attribute to mag 
nilicence what was really I he effect of a, very 
disagreeable neeessity. People, in the time of 
Charles the Second, travelled with six horses, 
because with a smaller number there was great 
danger of slicking fast in the mire. Nor were 
even six horses always sufficient. Vanbrugh, 
in the succeeding generation, described with 
greal humourthe way in which a country gentle- 
man, newly chosen a member of Parliament, 
went up to London. On that occasion all I he 
exertions of six beasts, two of which had been 
taken from the plough, could not save the 
family coach from being embedded in a quag- 
mire. 

Public carriages had recently been much 
improved. During the years which immedi- 
ately followed the Restoration, a diligence ran 
between London and Oxford in two days. 
The passengers slept at Beaconsfield. At 
length, in the spring of 1669, a great and daring 
innovation was attempted. It was announced 
that a vehicle, describee! as the: Flying Coach, 
woulel perform the whe)le journey between 
sunrise and sunset. This spirited under 
taking was solemnly considered and sanctioned 
by the Heads of the University, and appears to 
have excited the same sort e ( f interest which is 
excited in our own time by the opening of a new 
railway. The Vicc-Chanccllor, by a notice 
affixed in all public places, prescribed the- hour 
and place of departure. The success of the 
experiment Was complete. At six in the 
morning the carriage began to move from 
before the ancient front of All Souls College; 
and at seven in the evening the adventurous 
gentlemen who had run the first risk were 
safely deposited at their inn in London. The 
emulation of the sister University was moved; 
and soon a diligence was set up which in one 
day carried passengers from Cambridge to the 
capital. At the close of the reign of Charles 
the Second, Hying carriages ran thrice a week 
from London to the chief towns. But no 
stagecoach, indeed no stage wagon, appears to 
have proceeded further north than Ye>rk, or 
further west than Exeter. The- ordinary day's 
journey of a flying coach was about fifty miles 
in the summer; but in winter, when the ways 
were bad and the- nights long, little more than 
thirty. The Chester coach, the York coach, 
and the Exeter coach generally reacheel London 
in four clays during the fine season, but at 
Christmas not till the sixth day. The pas- 



396 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



sengers, six in number, were all seated in the 
carriage. For accidents were so frequent that 
it would have been most perilous to mount the 
roof. The ordinary fare was about twopence 
half-penny a mile in summer, and somewhat 
more in winter. 

******* 

In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, 
it was still usual for men who enjoyed health 
and vigour, and who were not encumbered by 
much baggage, to perform long journeys on 
horseback. If the traveller wished to move 
expeditiously, he rode post. Fresh saddle 
horses and guides were to be procured at con- 
venient distances along all the great lines of 
road. The charge was threepence a mile for 
each horse, and fourpence a stage for the guide. 
In this manner, when the ways were good, it 
was possible to travel, for a considerable time, 
as rapidly as by any conveyance known in 
England, till vehicles were propelled by steam. 
There were as yet no post-chaises; nor could 
those who rode in their own coaches ordinarily 
procure a change of horses. The King, how- 
ever, and the great officers of state were able 
to command relays. Thus Charles commonly 
went in one day from Whitehall to New- 
market, a distance of about fifty-five miles, 
through a level country; and this was thought 
by his subjects a proof of great activity. Evelyn 
performed the same journey in company with 
the Lord Treasurer Clifford. The coach was 
drawn by six horses, which were changed at 
Bishop Stortford, and again at Chesterford. 
The travellers reached Newmarket at night. 
Such a mode of conveyance seems to have been 
considered as a rare luxury, confined to princes 
and ministers. 

Whatever might be the way in which a 
journey was performed, the travellers, unless 
they were numerous and well armed, ran con- 
siderable risk of being stopped and plundered. 
The mounted highwayman, a marauder known 
to our generation only from books, was to be 
found on every main road. The waste tracts 
which lay on the great routes near London were 
especially haunted by plunderers of this class. 
Ilounslow Heath, on the Great Western Road, 
and Finchley Common, on the Great Northern 
Road, were perhaps the most celebrated of these 
spots. The Cambridge scholars trembled 
when they approached Epping Forest, even in 
broad daylight. Seamen who had just been 
paid off at Chatham were often compelled to 
deliver their purses on Gadshill, celebrated near 
a hundred years earlier by the greatest of poets 



as the scene of the depredations of Falstaff. 
The public authorities seem to have been often 
at a loss how to deal with the plunderers. At 
one time it was announced in the Gazette 
that several persons who were strongly sus- 
pected of being highwaymen, but against whom 
there was not sufficient evidence, would be 
paraded at Newgate in riding-dresses: their 
horses would also be shown; and all gentlemen 
who had been robbed were invited to inspect 
this singular exhibition. On another occasion 
a pardon was publicly offered to a robber if 
he would give up some rough diamonds, of 
immense value, which he had taken when he 
Stopped the Harwich mail. A short time after 
appeared another proclamation, warning the 
innkeepers that the eye of the government 
was upon them. Their criminal connivance, 
it was affirmed, enabled banditti to infest the 
roads with impunity. That these suspicions 
were not without foundation is proved by the 
dying speeches of some penitent robbers of that 
age, who appear to have received from the inn- 
keepers services much resembling those which 
Farquhar's Boniface rendered to Gibbet. 
******* 
All the various dangers by which the traveller 
was beset were greatly increased by darkness, 
lie was therefore commonly desirous of having 
the shelter of a roof during the night; and such 
shelter it was not difficult to obtain. From a 
very early period the inns of England had been 
renowned. Our first great poet had described 
the excellent accommodation which they af- 
forded to the pilgrims of the fourteenth century. 
Nine and twenty persons with their horses, 
found room in the wide chambers and stables 
of the Tabard in Southwark. The food was of 
the best, and the wines such as drew the com- 
pany on to drink largely. Two hundred years 
later, under the reign of Elizabeth, William 
Harrison gave a lively description of the plenty 
and comfort of the great hostelries. The Con- 
tinent of Europe, he said, could show nothing 
like them. There were some in which two or 
three hundred people, with their horses, could 
without difficulty be lodged and fed. The 
bedding, the tapestry, above all, the abundance 
of clean and fine linen was matter of wonder. 
Valuable plate was often set on the tables. 
Nay, there were signs which had cost thirty 
or forty pounds. In the seventeenth century 
England abounded with excellent inns of every 
rank. The traveller sometimes, in a small 
village, lighted on a public-house such as 
Walton has described, where the brick floor 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



397 



was swept clean, where the walls were stuck 
round with ballads, where the sheets smelled 
of lavender, and where a blazing fire, a cup of 
good ale, and a dish of trouts fresh from the 
neighbouring brook, were to be procured at 
small charge. At the larger houses of entertain- 
ment were to be found beds hung with silk, 
choice cookery, and claret equal to the best 
which was drunk in London. The inn- 
keepers too, it was said, were not like other 
innkeepers. On the Continent the landlord 
was the tyrant of those who crossed the thresh- 
old. In England he was a servant. Never 
was an Englishman more at home than when he 
took his ease in his inn. Even men of fortune, 
who might in their mansions have enjoyed 
every luxury, were often in the habit of passing 
their evenings in the parlour of some neighbour- 
ing house of public entertainment. They seem 
to have thought that comfort and freedom 
could in no other place be enjoyed with equal 
perfection. This feeling continued during 
many generations to be a national peculiarity. 
The liberty and jollity of inns long furnished 
matter to our novelists and dramatists. John- 
son declared that a tavern chair was the throne 
of human felicity; and Shenstone gently com- 
plained that no private roof, however friendly, 
gave the wanderer so warm a welcome as that 
which was to be found at an inn. 

******* 
The mode in which correspondence was 
carried on between distant places may excite 
the scorn of the present generation ; yet it was 
such as might have moved the admiration and 
envy of the polished nations of antiquity, or 
of the contemporaries of Raleigh and Cecil. 
A rude and imperfect establishment of posts 
for the conveyance of letters had been set up 
by Charles the First, and had been swept away 
by the civil war. Under the Commonwealth 
the design was resumed. At the Restoration 
the proceeds of the Post Office, after all ex- 
penses had been paid, were settled on the Duke 
of York. On most lines of road the mails went 
out and came in only on the alternate days. 
In Cornwall, in the fens of Lincolnshire, and 
among the hills and lakes of Cumberland, 
letters were received only once a week. During 
a royal progress a daily post was despatched 
from the capital to the place where the court 
sojourned. There was also daily communica- 
tion between London and the Downs; and the 
same privilege was sometimes extended to 
Tunbridge Wells and Bath at the seasons when 
those places were crowded by the great. The 



bags were carried on horseback day and night 
at the rate of about five miles an hour. 

The revenue of this establishment was not 
derived solely from the charge for the trans- 
m ssion of letters. The Post Office alone was 
entitled to furnish post horses; and, from the 
care with which this monopoly was guarded, 
we may infer that it was found profitable. If, 
indeed, a traveller had waited half an hour 
without being supplied, he might hire a horse 
wherever he could. 

To facilitate correspondence between one 
part of London and another was not originally 
one of the objects of the Post Office. But, 
in the reign of Charles the Second, an enter- 
prising citizen of London, William Dockwray, 
set .up, at great expense, a penny post, which 
delivered letters and parcels six or eight times 
a day in the busy and crowded streets near the 
Exchange, and four times a day in the outskirts 
of the capital. This improvement was, as usual, 
strenuously resisted. The porters complained 
that their interests were attacked, and tore 
down the placards in which the scheme was 
announced to the public. The excitement 
caused by Godfrey's death, and by the discovery 
of Coleman's papers, was then at the height. 
A cry was therefore raised that the penny 
post was a popish contrivance. The great 
Doctor Oates, it was affirmed, had hinted a 
suspicion that the Jesuits were at the bottom 
of the scheme, and that the bags, if examined, 
would be found full of treason. The utility 
of the enterprise was, however, so great and 
obvious that all opposition proved fruitless. 
As soon as it became clear that the speculation 
would be lucrative, the Duke of York com- 
plained of it as an infraction of his monopoly; 
and the courts of law decided in his favour. 
******* 

No part of the load which the old mails 
carried out was more important than the news- 
letters. In 1685 nothing like the London daily 
paper of our time existed, or could exist. 
Neither the necessary capital nor the necessary 
skill was to be found. Freedom too was want- 
ing, a want as fatal as that of either capital 
or skill. The press was not indeed at that 
moment under a general censorship. The 
licensing act, which had been passed soon after 
the Restoration, had expired in 1679. Any 
person might therefore print, at his own risk, 
a history, a sermon, or a poem, without the 
previous approbation of any officer; but the 
judges were unanimously of opinion that this 
liberty did not extend to Gazettes, and that, 



398 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



by the common law of England, no man, not 
authorised by the Crown, had a right to pub- 
lish political oews. While the Whig party was 
still formidable, the government thought it 
expedient occasionally It) connive at the viola- 
tion of the rule. During the great battle of the 
Exclusion Bill, many newspapers were suffered 
to appear, the Protestant Intelligence, the Cur- 
rent Intelligence, the Domestic Intelligence, 
the True News, the London Mercury. None 
of these was published oftener than twice a 
week. None exceeded in size a single small 
leaf. The quantity of matter which one of 
them contained in a year was not more than 
is often found in two numbers of the Times. 
After the defeat of the Whigs it was no longer 
necessary for the King to be sparing in the use 
of that which all his judges had pronounced to 
be his undoubted prerogative. At the close of 
his reign no newspaper was suffered to appear 
without his allowance; and his allowance was 
given exclusively to the London Gazette. The 
London Gazette came out only on Mondays 
and Thursdays. The contents generally were 
a royal proclamation, two or three Tory ad- 
dresses, notices of two or three promotions, 
an account of a skirmish between the imperial 
troops and the janizaries on the Danube, a 
description of a highwayman, an announce- 
ment of a grand cockfight between two persons 
of honour, and an advertisement offering a 
reward for a strayed dog. The whole made up 
two pages of moderate size. Whatever was 
communicated respecting matters of the highest 
moment was communicated in the most meagre 
and formal style. Sometimes, indeed, when the 
government was disposed to gratify the public 
curiosity respecting an important transaction, 
a broadside was put forth giving fuller details 
than could be found in the Gazette; but 
neither the Gazette nor any supplementary 
broadside printed by authority ever contained 
any intelligence which it did not suit the pur- 
poses of the court to publish. The most 
important parliamentary debates; the most 
important state trials, recorded in our history, 
were passed over in profound silence. In the 
capital the coffee-houses supplied in some 
measure the place of a journal. Thither the 
Londoners flocked, as the Athenians of old 
flocked to the market-place, to hear whether 
there was any news. There men might learn 
how brutally a Whig had been treated the day 
before in Westminster Hall, what horrible 
accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of 
the torturing of Covenanters, how grossly the 



Navy Board had cheated the Crown in the 
victualling of the fleet, and what grave charges 
the Lord Privy Seal had brought against the 
Treasury in the matter of the hearth money. 
but people who lived at a distance from the 
great theatre of political contention could be 
kept regularly informed of what was passing 
there only by means of news letters. To pre- 
pare such letters became a calling in London, 
as it now is among the natives of India. The 
news writer rambled from coffee room to coffee- 
room, collecting reports, squeezed himself into 
the Sessions House at the Old Bailey if there 
was an interesting trial, nay, perhaps obtained 
admission to the gallery of Whitehall, and no- 
ticed how the King and Duke looked. In this 
way he gathered materials for weekly epistles 
destined to enlighten some county town or 
some bench of rustic magistrates. Such were 
the sources from which the inhabitants of the 
largest provincial cities, and the great body of 
the gentry and clergy, learned almost all that 
they knew of the history of their own time. 
We must suppose that at Cambridge there were 
as many persons curious to know what was 
passing in the world as at almost any place in 
the kingdom, out of London. Yet at Cam- 
bridge, during a great part of the reign of Charles 
the Second, the Doctorsof Lawsand the Masters 
of Arts had no regular supply of news except 
through the London Gazette. At length the 
Services of one of the collectors of intelligence 
in the capital were employed. That was a 
memorable day on which the first news-letter 
from London was laid on the table of the only 
coffee room in Cambridge. At the seat of a 
man of fortune in the country the news-letter 
was impatiently expected. Within a week after 
it had arrived it had been thumbed by twenty 
families. It furnished the neighbouring squires 
with matter for talk oxer their October, and the 
neighbouring rectors with topics for sharp 
sermons against Whiggcry or Popery. Many 
of these curious journals might doubtless still 
be detected by a diligent search in the archives 
of old families. Some are to be found in our 
public libraries: and one series, which is not 
the least valuable part of the literary treasures 
collected by Sir James Mackintosh, will be oc- 
casionally quoted in the course of this work. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that there were 
then no provincial newspapers. Indeed, ex- 
cept in the capital and at the two Universities, 
there was scarcely a printer in the kingdom. 
The only press in England north of Trent 
appears to have been at York. 



'I III, HISTORY OF KNGFANI) 



399 



******* 
Literature which could be carried by the 
posi bag then formed the greater pari of the 
intellectual nutriment ruminated by the coun- 
try divines and country justices. The dilli 
culty and expense of conveying large packets 
from place to place was so great, thai an ex 
tensive work was longer in making its way 
from Paternoster Row to Devonshire or Lan- 
cashire than it now is in reaching Kentucky. 
How scantily a rural parsonage was then fur- 
nished, even with books the most necessary 
to a theologian, has already been remarked. 
The houses of the gentry were not more plenti 
fully supplied. Few knights of the shire had 
libraries so good as may now perpetually be 
found in a servants' hall, or in the back par- 
lour of asmall shopkeeper. An esquire passed 
among his neighbours for a great, scholar, if 
Hudibras and Baker's Chronicle, Tarlton's 
Jests and the Seven Champions of Christen- 
dom, lay in his hall window among the fishing- 
rods and fowling pieces. No circulating li- 
brary, no book society, then existed even in 
the capital: but in the capital those students 
who could not afford to purchase largely had 
a resource. The; shops of the great book 
sellers, near Saint Paul's Churchyard, were 
crowded every clay and all clay long with 
readers; and a known customer was often 
permit led to carry a volume home. In the 
country there was no such accommodation; 
and every man was under the- necessity of buy- 
ing whatever he wished to read. 

As to the lady of the manor and her daugh- 
ters, their literary stores generally consisted of 
a prayer book and a receipt book. Hut in 
truth they lost little by living in rural seclusion. 
For, even in the highest ranks, and in those 
situations which afforded the greatest facilities 
for mental improvement, the English women 
of that generation were decidedly worse edu- 
cated than they have been at any other time 
since the revival of learning. At an earlier 
period they had studied the masterpieces of 
ancient genius. In the: present day they 
seldom bestow much attention on the dead 
languages; but they are- familiar with the 
tongue of Pascal and Moliere, with the tongue 
of Dante and Tasso, with the tongue of Goethe 
and Schiller; nor is there any purer or rneire; 
graceful English than that which accomplish d 
women now speak and write. Hut, during 
the latter part of the seventeenth century, the 
culture of the female mind seems to have been 
almost entirely neglected. If a damsel had 



the least smattering of literature she: was re- 
garded as a prodigy. Ladies highly born, 
highly bred, and naturally quick willed, were 
unable to write a line in their mother tongue 
Without solecisms and faults e>f spelling such 
as a charity girl would now be ashamed to 
commit. 

The explanation may easily be found. 
Extravagant licentiousness, the natural effect 
of extravaganl austerity, was now the mode; 
and licentiousness had produced its ordinary 
effect, tin' moral and intellectual degradation 
of women. To their personal beauty it was 
the fashion to pay rude and impudent homage. 
But the admiratie)n and desire which they in 
spireel were seldom mingled wilh respect, with 
affection, or with any chivalrous sentiment. 
The qualities which lit them to be companions, 

advisers, confidential friends, ralhe-r repelled 
than attracted the- libertines of Whitehall. In 
that court a maid of honour, who dressed in 
such a manner as to do full justice- to a white 

bosom, who ogled significantly, who danced 
voluptuously, who excelled in pert repartee, 

who was not ashamed to romp with Levels of 

the; Bedchamber and Captains ejf the Guards, 

te) sing sly verses with sly expression, or to 
put on a, page-'s dress for a frolic, was more 
likely to be- followed ami admired, mejre likely 
to be honoured with royal attentions, more 
likely to win a rich and noble husband than 
Jane Grey or Lucy Hutchinson would have 
been. In such circumstances the standard ejf 
female attainments was necessarily low; and 
it was more dangerous to be above thai stand 
ard than to be beneath it. Extreme ignorance 
and frivolity we-rc- thought less unbecoming in 
a lady than the slightest tincture of peelantry. 
Of the loo celebrated women whose faee-s we; 
still admire on the walls of Hampton Court, 
few indeed were in the habit ejf re-aeling any- 
thing more valuable than acrostics, lampejons, 
and translations of the Clelia and the Grand 
Cyrus. 

The literary acquirements, even of the ac- 
COmplished gentlemen of that generation, seem 
to have been somewhat less solid and pre; 
found than at an earlier or a later pe-rioe|. 
Greek learning, at least, did not. flourish 
among us in the clays of Charles the Second, 
as it had flourished before the civil war, or 
as it again flourished long after the Revolution. 
There were undoubtedly scholars to whom 
the whole- Greek literature, from Ilome-r to 
Photius, was familiar: but such scholars we-rc; 
to be found almost exclusively among the 



4oo 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



clergy resident at the Universities, and even at 
the Universities were few, and were not fully 

apprei iated. At Cambridge it was not thought 

l>y any means necessary that a divine should 

be able t«> read the Gospels in the original. 
Nor was the standard at ( Oxford higher. 

When, in the reign of William die Third, 
Christ Church rose up as one man to defend 
the genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris, 
that great college, then considered as the first 
seat of philology in tin' kingdom, could not 
muster such a stock of Attic learning as is now 
possessed l>y several youths at every great 
public school. It may easily be supposed lhat 
a dead language, neglected at the Universities, 
was not much studied by men of the world. 
In a former age the poetry and eloquence "I 
Greece had been the delight of Raleigh and 

Falkland. In a later age the poetry and elo 
OUence of Greece were the delight of Pitt and 
FOX, of Windham and Grcuville. Hut during 
the latter part of the sev< nteenth century there 

was in England scarcely one eminent states 

man who could read with enjoyment a page of 
Sophocles or Plato. 

Good Latin scholars were numerous. The 
language of Pome, indeed, had not altogether 
lost its imperial prerogatives, and was still, in 

many parts of Europe, almost indispensable 

to a traveller or a negotiator. To speak it 
well was therefore a much more common 

accomplishment than in our time; and neither 
Oxford nor Cambridge wanted poets who, on 
a great occasion, could lay at the foot of the 
throne happy imitations of the verses in which 
Virgil and Ovid had celebrated the greatness of 
Augustus. 

Net even the Latin was giving way to a 
younger rival. France united at that time 
almost every species of ascendency. Her 
military glory was at the height. She had 
vanquished mighty coalitions. She had dic- 
tated treaties. She had subjugated great cities 
and provinces. She had forced the Castilian 
pride to yield her die precedence. She had 
summoned Italian princes to prostrate them 
selves at her footstool. Hit authority was 
Supreme in all matters of good breeding, from 
a dud to a minuet. She determined how a 
gentleman's coat must be cut, how long his 

peruke must be, whether his heels must be 
nigh or low, and whether the hue on his hat 
must be broad or narrow. In literature she 
gave law to the world. The fame of her great 
writers tilled Europe. 

* ****** 



It would have been well if our writers had 
also copied the decorum which their great 
French contemporaries, with few exceptions, 
preserved; for the profligacy of the English 
plays, satires, songs, and novels of that age is 
a deep blot on our national fame. The evil 
may easily be traced to its source. The wits 
and the Puritans had never been on friendly 
terms. There was no sympathy between the 

two (lasses. They looked on the whole system 
of human life from different points and in 
different lights. The earnest of each was the 
jest of the other. 'Pin- pleasures of each were 
the torments of the other. To the stern pre- 
cisian even the innocent sport of the fancy 
seemed a (lime. To light and festive natures 
the solemnity of the zealous brethren furnished 
COpioUS matter of ridicule, from the Refor- 
mation to the civil war, almost every writer, 
gifted with a line sense of the ludicrous, had 

taken some opportunity of assailing the straight- 

haired, snuflling, whining saints, who christened 
their children out of the Hook of Nchcmiah, 
who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in 

the Green, and who thought it impious to 

taste plum porridge on Christmas day. At 
length a time came when the laughers began 
to look grave in their turn. The rigid, ungainly 
zealots, after having furnished much good 
spoil dining two generations, rose up in arms, 
Conquered, ruled, and, grimly smiling, trod 
down under their feet the whole crowd of 

mockers. The wounds inflicted by gay and 

petulant malice were retaliated with the gloomy 
and implacable malice peculiar to bigots who 
mistake their own rancour for virtue. The 
theatres were closed. The players were 
flogged. The press was put under the guardian- 
ship of austere licensers. The Muses were 
banished from their own favourite haunts, 
Cambridge and Oxford. Cowley, Crashaw, 
and Cleveland were ejected from their fellow- 
ships. The young candidate for academical 

honours was no longer required to write ( ►vid- 
ian epistles or Virgilian pastorals, but was 
Strictly interrogated by a synod of lowering 
Supralapsarians as to the day and hour when 
he experienced the new birth. Such a system 

was of course fruitful of hypocrites. Under 
sober clothing and under visages composed 
to the expression of austerity lay hid during 
several vears the intense desire of license and 
of revenge. At length that desire was gratified. 
The Restoration emancipated thousands of 
minds from a yoke which had become insup- 
portable. The old light recommenced, but 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



401 



with an animosity altogether new. It was now 
not a sportive combat, but a war to the death. 
The Roundhead had no better quarter to ex- 
pect from those whom he had persecuted than 
a cruel slave-driver can expect from insurgent 
slaves still bearing the marks of his collars and 
his scourges. 

The war between wit and Puritanism soon 
became a war between wit and morality. The 
hostility excited by a grotesque caricature of 
Virtue did not spare Virtue herself. Whatever 
the canting Roundhead had regarded with 
reverence was insulted. Whatever he had 
proscribed was favoured. Because he had been 
scrupulous about trifles, all scruples were 
treated with derision. Because he had covered 
his failings with the mask of devotion, men 
were encouraged to obtrude with Cynic impu- 
dence all their most scandalous vices on the 
public eye. Because he had punished illicit 
love with barbarous severity, virgin purity and 
conjugal fidelity were made a jest. To that 
sanctimonious jargon which was his shibboleth 
was opposed another jargon not less absurd 
and much more odious. As he never opened 
his mouth except in scriptural phrase, the new 
breed of wits and fine gentlemen never opened 
their mouths without uttering ribaldry of which 
a porter would now be ashamed, and without 
calling on their Maker to curse them, sink 
them, confound them, blast them, and damn 
them. 

It is not strange, therefore, that our polite 
literature, when it revived with the revival of 
the old civil and ecclesiastical polity, should 
have been profoundly immoral. A few emi- 
nent men, who belonged to an earlier and 
better age, were exempt from the general 
contagion. The verse of Waller still breathed 
the sentiments which had animated a more 
chivalrous generation. Cowley, distinguished 
as a loyalist and as a man of letters, raised 
his voice courageously against the immorality 
which disgraced both letters and loyalty. A 
mightier poet, tried at once by pain, danger, 
poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditated, 
undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged 
all around him, a song so sublime and so holy 
that it would not have misbecome the lips of 
those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that 
inner eye which no calamity could darken, 
flinging down on the jasper pavement their 
crowns of amaranth and gold. The vigorous 
and fertile genius of Butler, if it did not alto- 
gether escape the prevailing infection, took the 
disease in a mild form. But these were men 



whose minds had been trained in a world 
which had passed away. They gave place in 
no long time to a younger generation of wits; 
and of that generation, from Dryden down to 
Durfey, the common characteristic was hard- 
hearted, shameless, swaggering licentiousness, 
at once inelegant and inhuman. The influ- 
ence of these writers was doubtless noxious, 
yet less noxious than it would have been had 
they been less depraved. The poison which 
they administered was so strong that it was, 
in no long time, rejected with nausea. None 
of them understood the dangerous art of asso- 
ciating images of unlawful pleasure with all 
that is endearing and ennobling. None of 
them was aware that a certain decorum is 
essential even to voluptuousness, that drapery 
may be more alluring than exposure, and that 
the imagination may be far more powerfully 
moved by delicate hints which impel it to exert 
itself than by gross descriptions which it takes 
in passively. 

The spirit of the anti-Puritan reaction per- 
vades almost the whole polite literature of the 
reign of Charles the Second. But the very 
quintessence of that spirit will be found in the 
comic drama. The playhouses, shut by the 
meddling fanatic in the day of his power, 
were again crowded. To their old attractions 
new and more powerful attractions had been 
added. Scenery, dresses, and decorations, 
such as would now be thought mean or absurd, 
but such as would have been esteemed in- 
credibly magnificent by those who, early in 
the seventeenth century, sat on the filthy 
benches of the Hope, or under the thatched 
roof of the Rose, dazzled the eyes of the mul- 
titude. The fascination of sex was called in 
to aid the fascination of art: and the young 
spectator saw, with emotions unknown to the 
contemporaries of Shakespeare and Jonson, 
tender and sprightly heroines personated by 
lovely women. From the day on which the 
theatres were reopened they became semi- 
naries of vice; and the evil propagated itself. 
The profligacy of the representations soon 
drove away sober people. The frivolous and 
dissolute who remained required every year 
stronger and stronger stimulants. Thus the 
artists corrupted the spectators, and the spec- 
tators the artists, till the turpitude of the 
drama became such as must astonish all who 
are not aware that extreme relaxation is the 
natural effect of extreme restraint, and that 
an age of hypocrisy is, in the regular course of 
things, followed by an age of impudence. 



.),,.• THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 

Nothing is more characterise ol the times besl years were wasted on dramatic compos! 

than the care with which the poets con tion, He bad too much judgment nol to be 

trived to put all their loosest verses into the aware thai inthepowei of exhibiting character 

mouths oi women, The compositions in l>v means oi dialogue he was deficient. That 

which the greatest license was taken were deficiency he did bis best to conceal) some 

the epilogues. They wen- almost always re times by surprising and amusing incidents, 

cited by favourite actresses; and nothing sometimes by Btately declamation, sometimes 

charmed the depraved audience so much as by harmonious numbers, sometimes bj ribaldry 

to heai lines grossly indecent repeated by s but too well suited, to the taste of a profane 

beautiful girl, who was supposed to have not and licentious pit. Vei he never obtained any 

yet lost her innocence. theatrical success equal to that which rewarded 

•x- * * x- * * x- the exertions oi .'.nine men far inferior i<> him 

Such was the state of the drama; and the in general powers, lie thoughl himself fortu- 

drame was the department oi polite literature nate it he cleared a hundred guineas by a 

In which s poel had the best chance of obtain play; a scanty remuneration, yel apparently 

iiir. :i subsistence by his pen The sale of larger than he could have earned in any other 

books was so small thai s man of the great way by the same quantity <>f laboui 
est name could hardly expeel more than a pit« The re< ompense which the wits of thai age 

tance for the copyright of the best performance, could obtain from the public was so small, 

There cannol be a strongei Instance than the thai they were under the necessity of eking 

fate of Dryden's last production, the Fables, oul their incomes by levying contributions on 

Thai volume was published when he was in i i the great. Every rich and good natured lord 

versally admitted to be the chief of living was pestered by authors with a mendicancy so 

English poets, it contains about twelve thou importunate, and s Battery so abject, as may 

sand lines. The versification is admirable, the in our time seem Incredible. The patron t«> 

narratives and descriptions full of life. To this whom a work was inscribed was expected to 

day Palamon and Arcite, Cymon and Iphigenia, reward the writer with a purse of gold. The 

Theodore and Honoria, are the delight both of fee paid for the dedication of a book was 

critics and of schoolboys. The collection in often much larger than the sum which any 

i hides Alexander's Feast, the noblesl ode in publisher would give for the copyright. Hooks 

our language. For the copyright Dryden were therefore frequently printed merely that 

received two hundred and fifty pounds, less they might be dedicated. This traffic in praise 

than in our days has sometimes been paid for produced the effect which mighl have been 

iwoaiiiiles in a review, Nor does the bargain expected. Adulation pushed to the verge, 

seem tO have lieen a hard one. Foi the book sometimes of nonsense, and sometimes ol mi 

went off slowly; and the seeond edition was pielv, was nol tilOUghl I" dr.r.iacc a poel. 

noi required till the author had been ten years independence, veracity, sell respe< t, were things 

in his grave. By writing for the theatre it was not required by the world from him, in truth, 

possible to earn a nun h larger sum with much he was in morals something between a pander 

less trouble. Southern made seven hundred and a beggar. 

pounds by one play. Olwav was raised from x- * * # * -X- x- 

beggary i" temporan affluence by the .success ii is a remarkable fad that, while the 

of his Don Carlos. Shadwell cleared a hundred lighter literature of England was thus becom 

and thirty pounds by a single representation oi ing a nuisance and a national disgrace, the 

the Squire of \l.atia The consequence was English genius was effecting In science a revo 

thai every man who had to live by his wit lution which will, to the end of time, be reckoned 

wrote plays, whethei he had any internal among the highesl achievements of the human 

vocation t,> write plays Or not. It was thus intellect. BaCOn had sown the good seed in a 

with Dryden, \s a satirist he has rivalled sluggish soil and an ungenial season. He had 

Juvenal. As a didactic poet lie perhaps not expected an early CTOp, and in his last 

might, with care and meditation, have rivalled testamenl had solemnly bequeathed his fame 

Lucretius. Of lyric poets he is, it nol the to the nexl age, During a whole generation, 

most sublime, the most brilliant and spirit bis philosophy had, amidst tumults, wars, and 

stirring Bui nature, prof use to him oi many proscriptions, been slowly ripening in a Few 

ran guts, had withheld from him the dramatu Dell-constituted minds. While factions were 

faculty. Nevertheless, all the energies oi his struggling foi dominion ovei each other, a 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



403 



small body <>f gages had turned away wiih 
benevolent disdain from the conflict, and had 
devoted themselves to the nobler work of ex 
tending the dominion ol man over matter, 
As soon as tranquillity was restored, these 
teachers easily found attentive audience. For 
tin- discipline through which the nation had 
passed had brought the publii mind to a 
temper well fitted for the reception of the 
Verulamian doctrine. The civil troubles had 
stimulated the fa< ulties of the edu< ated < lasses, 
and had culled forth a restless activity and an 
insatiable curiosity, such as had not In-fore 
been known among us. Vet the effei 1 of those 
troubles was thai schemes of political and 
religious reform were generally regarded with 
suspicion and contempt. During twenty years 
the chief employment of busy and ingenious 
men bad been to frame constitutions with 
first magistrates, withoul firsl magistrates, with 
hereditary senates, with senates appointed by 
lot, wiih annual senates, with perpetual senati s 
In these plans nothing was omitted. All the 
detail, all the nomeni lature, all the ceremonial 
of the imaginary government was fully set 
forth Polemarchs and Phylarchs, Tribes 
and Galaxies, the Lord Archon and the Lord 
Strategus. Which ballot boxes wen- to be 

green and wliii h red, wliii h halls were to lie of 

gold and which of silver, which magistrates 

were tO wear hats and which lilai k velvet caps 
With peaks, liow (lie inaee was to be Carried 
and when the heralds were to imCOVer, these, 
and a hundred more such trifles, were gravely 

considered and arranged by men of no com 
moil capacity and learning. But the time foi 

these visions had gone by; and, if any stead 

fast republican still continued to amuse him- 
self with them, fear of public derision and of a 
criminal information generally induced him 

to keep his fancies to himself. It was now 
unpopular and unsafe to mutter a word against 

the fundamental laws of the monarchy: but 
daring and ingenious men might indemnify 

themselves by treating with disdain what had 

lately been considered as the fundamental 

laws of nature. The torrent which had been 

dammed up in one channel rushed violently 

into another. 'I 'he revolutionary spirit, < easing 

to operate in politics, began to exert itself with 
unprecedented vigour and hardihood in every 

department Of physics. The year iodo, the 

era ol the restoration of the old constitution, 

is also the era from whi< h dales the as< endem y 
of the new philosophy. In that year the Royal 
Society, destined to be a chief agent in a long 



series of glorious and salutary reform:;, began 

to exist. In a lew months experimental sci- 

em e became all the mode. The transfusion of 

blood, the ponderation of air, the fixation of 

men ui y, bu< i ceded to that plai e in the puUi< 

mind which had been lately o< < upied by the 

controversies of the Rota. Dreams of perfeel 
forms oi government made way for dreams 

of wings with whic h men were to lly from the 
Tower to the Abbey, and of double k( I I' d 
ships which were never to founder in the 
fiercest storm. All (lasses were hurried along 

by the prevailing sentiment. Cavalier and 

Roundhead, Churchman and Rurilan, were 
for once allied. Divines, jurists, statesmen, 

nobles, princes, swelled the triumph of the 
Baconian philosophy. Poets sang with emu 
Ions fervour the approach of the golden age. 

Cowley, in lines weijdily with thought and re 
splendent with wit, Urged the < hosen .seed to 
take possession of the promised land (lowing 
with milk and honey, that land which their 

great deliverer ami lawgivei had seen, as from 
the summit oi Pisgah, but had not been per 

nulled to enter, hryden, wiih more zeal than 

knowledge, joined his voice to the general 
acclamation, and foretold things which neither 

he nor anybody else understood. The Royal 
Society, he predicted, would soon lead us to 

the extreme verge of the globe, and there <!«• 

light us with a better view of the moon. Two 

able and aspiring prelates, Ward, Bishop of 

Salisbury, and Wilkins, Rishop of Chester, 

were conspicuous among the leaders of the 
movement. Its history was eloquently writti n 
by a younger divine, who was rising to high 

distinction in his profession, Thomas Sprat, 

afterward Bishop of Rochester. Roth chief 
Justice Hale and Lord ECeepei Guildford stole 

some- hours from tin business of their courts 

to write on hydrostatics. Indeed, it was 
under the immediate direction of Guildford 

thai Ihe first baromelers ever exposed to sale 

in London wen- constructed. Chemistry di- 
vided, for a. lime, wiih wine and love-, with the 

stage and tin- gaming table, wiih the intrigues 
of a courtier and the intrigues ol a demagogue, 
the attention of the he kle I'm kingham. R upert 

has the credit of having invented ine/./.ol into; 

and from him is named that cm ions bubble of 

glass which has long amused children and 

puzzled philosophers. Charles himsell had a 

laboratory at Whitehall, and was lar more 
active and attentive there than al the council 

board. It was almost necessary to the char 

actei ol a hue gentleman to have something 



4Q4 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



to say about air-pumps and telescopes; and 
even fine ladies, now and then, thought it 
becoming to affect a taste for science, went in 
coaches and six to visit the Gresham curiosi- 
ties, and broke forth into cries of delight at 
finding that a magnet really attracted a needle, 
and that a microscope really made a fly look 
as large as a sparrow. 

In this, as in every stir of the human mind, 
there was doubtless something which might 
well move a smile. It is the universal law 
that whatever pursuit, whatever doctrine, be- 
comes fashionable, shall lose a portion of that 
dignity which it has possessed while it was 
confined to a small but earnest minority, and 
was loved for its own sake alone. It is true 
that the follies of some persons who, without 
any real aptitude for science, professed a pas- 
sion for it, furnished matter of contemptuous 
mirth to a few malignant satirists who be- 
longed to the preceding generation, and were 
not disposed to unlearn the lore of their youth. 
But it is not less true that the great work 
of interpreting nature was performed by the 
English of that age as it had never before been 
performed in any age by any nation. The 
spirit of Francis Bacon was abroad, a spirit 
admirably compounded of audacity and so- 
briety. There was a strong persuasion that 
the whole world was full of secrets of high 
moment to the happiness of man, and that 
man had, by his Maker, been entrusted with 
the key which, rightly used, would give access 
to them. There was at the same time a con- 
viction that in physics it was impossible to 
arrive at the knowledge of general laws except 
by the careful observation of particular facts. 
Deeply impressed with these great truths, the 
professors of the new philosophy applied them- 
selves to their task, and, before a quarter of a 
century had expired, they had given ample 
earnest of what has since been achieved. 
Already a reform of agriculture had been 
commenced. New vegetables were cultivated. 
New implements of husbandry were employed. 
New manures were applied to the soil. Evelyn 
had, under the formal sanction of the Royal 
Society, given instruction to his countrymen 
in planting. Temple, in his intervals of 
leisure, had tried many experiments in horti- 
culture, and had proved that many delicate 
fruits, the natives of more favoured climates, 
might, with the help of art, be grown on 
English ground. Medicine, which in France 
was still in abject bondage, and afforded an 
inexhaustible subject of just ridicule to Moliere, 



had in England become an experimental and 
progressive science, and every day made some 
new advance, in defiance of Hippocrates and 
Galen. The attention of speculative men had 
been, for the first time, directed to the im- 
portant subject of sanitary police. The great 
plague of 1665 induced them to consider with 
care the defective architecture, draining, and 
ventilation of the capital. The great fire of 
1666 afforded an opportunity for effecting 
extensive improvements. The whole matter 
was diligently examined by the Royal Society; 
and to the suggestions of that body must be 
partly attributed the changes which, though 
far short of what the public welfare required, 
yet made a wide difference between the new 
and the old London, and probably put a final 
close to the ravages of pestilence in our coun- 
try. At the same time one of the founders 
of the Society, Sir William Petty, created the 
science of political arithmetic, the humble but 
indispensable handmaid of political philosophy. 
No kingdom of nature was left unexplored. 
To that period belong the chemical discoveries 
of Boyle, and the earliest botanical researches 
of Sloane. It was then that Ray made a new 
classification of birds and fishes, and that the 
attention of Woodward was first drawn towards 
fossils and shells. One after another phan- 
toms which had haunted the world through 
ages of darkness fled before the light. As- 
trology and alchemy became jests. Soon there 
was scarcely a county in which some of the 
Quorum did not smile contemptuously when 
an old woman was brought before them for 
riding on broomsticks or giving cattle the mur- 
rain. But it was in those noblest and most 
arduous departments of knowledge in which 
induction and mathematical demonstration 
cooperate for the discovery of truth, that the 
English genius won in that age the most 
memorable triumphs. John Wallis placed the 
whole system of statics on a new foundation. 
Edmund Halley investigated the properties of 
the atmosphere, the ebb and flow of the sea, 
the laws of magnetism, and the course of the 
comets; nor did he shrink from toil, peril, and 
exile in the' cause of science. While he, on 
the rock of Saint Helena, mapped the con- 
stellations of the southern hemisphere, our 
national observatory was rising at Greenwich; 
and John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer 
Royal, was commencing that long series of 
observations which is never mentioned with- 
out respect and gratitude in any part of the 
globe. But the glory of these men, eminent 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



405 



as they were, is cast into the shade by the 
transcendent lustre of one immortal name. In 
Isaac Newton two kinds of intellectual power, 
which have little in common, and which are 
not often found together in a very high degree 
of vigour, but which nevertheless are equally 
necessary in the most sublime departments of 
physics, were united as they have never been 
united before or since. There may have been 
minds as happily constituted as his for the 
cultivation of pure mathematical science; 
there may have been minds as happily con- 
stituted for the cultivation of science purely 
experimental; but in no other mind have the 
demonstrative faculty and the inductive faculty 
coexisted in such supreme excellence and per- 
fect harmony. Perhaps in the days of Scotists 
and Thomists even his intellect might have 
run to waste, as many intellects ran to waste 
which were inferior only to his. Happily the 
spirit of the age on which his lot was cast 
gave the right direction to his mind; and his 
mind reacted with tenfold force on the spirit 
of the age. In the year 1685 his fame, though 
splendid, was only dawning; but his genius 
was in the meridian. His great work, that 
work which effected a revolution in the most 
important provinces of natural philosophy, had 
been completed, but was not yet published, 
and was just about to be submitted to the 
consideration of the Royal Society. 

******* 
It is time that this description of the Eng- 
land which Charles the Second governed should 
draw to a close. Yet one subject of the highest 
moment still remains untouched. Nothing 
has yet been said of the great body of the 
people, of those who held the ploughs, who 
tended the oxen, who toiled at the looms of 
Norwich, and squared the Portland stone for 
Saint Paul's. Nor can very much be said. 
The most numerous class is precisely the class 
respecting which we have the most meagre 
information. In those times philanthropists 
did not yet regard it as a sacred duty, nor had 
demagogues yet found it a lucrative trade, to 
talk and write about the distress of the labourer. 
History was too much occupied with courts and 
camps to spare a line for the hut of the peasant 
or the garret of the mechanic. The press 
now often sends forth in a day a greater 
quantity of discussion and declamation about 
the condition of the workingman than was 
published during the twenty-eight years which 
elapsed between the Restoration and the 
Revolution. But it would be a great error to 



infer from the increase of complaint that there 
has been any increase of misery. 

The great criterion of the state of the com- 
mon people is the amount of their wages; 
and as four-fifths of the common people were, 
in the seventeenth century, employed in agricul- 
ture, it is especially important to ascertain 
what were then the wages of agricultural in- 
dustry. On this subject we have the means 
of arriving at conclusions sufficiently exact for 
our purpose. 

Sir William Petty, whose mere assertion 
carries great weight, informs us that a labourer 
was by no means in the lowest state who 
received for a day's work fourpence with food, 
or eightpence without food. Four shillings a 
week therefore were, according to Petty's cal- 
culation, fair agricultural wages. 

That this calculation was not remote from 
the truth, we have abundant proof. About 
the beginning of the year 1685 the justices 
of Warwickshire, in the exercise of a power 
entrusted to them by an act of Elizabeth, fixed, 
at their quarter sessions, a scale of wages for 
the county, and notified that every employer 
who gave more than the authorised sum, and 
every workingman who received more, would 
be liable to punishment. The wages of the 
common agricultural labourer, from March to 
September, were fixed at the precise amount 
mentioned by Petty, namely, four shillings a 
week without food. From September to March 
the wages were to be only three and sixpence a 
week. 

But in that age, as in ours, the earnings of 
the peasants were very different in different 
parts of the kingdom. The wages of War- 
wickshire were probably about the average, 
and those of the counties near the Scottish 
border below it : but there were more favoured 
districts. In the same year, 1685, a gentle- 
man of Devonshire, named Richard Dunning, 
published a small tract, in which he described 
the condition of the poor of that county. 
That he understood his subject well it is im- 
possible to doubt; for a few months later his 
work was reprinted, and was, by the magis- 
trates assembled in quarter sessions at Exeter, 
strongly recommended to the attention of all 
parochial officers. According to him the 
wages of the Devonshire peasant were, with- 
out food, about five shillings a week. 

Still better was the condition of the labourer 
in the neighbourhood of Bury Saint Edmund's. 
The magistrates of Suffolk met there in the 
spring of 1682 to fix a rate of wages, and resolved 



406 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



that, where the labourer was not hoarded, he 
should have live shillings a week in winter, 
ami six in summer. 

In 1661 the justices of Chelmsford had 
fixed the wages of the Essex labourer, who 
was not boarded, at six shillings in winter, 
and seven in summer. This seems to have 
been the highest remuneration given in the 
kingdom for agricultural labour between the 
Restoration and the Revolution; and it is to 
be observed that, in the year in which this 
order was made, the necessaries of life were 
immoderately dear. Wheat was at seventy 
shillings the quarter, which would even now 
be considered as almost a famine price. 
******* 

The remuneration of workmen employed in 
manufactures has always been higher than that 
of the tillers of the soil. In the year 1680, a 
member of the House of Commons remarked 
that the high wages paid in this country made 
it impossible for our textures to maintain a 
competition with the produce of the Indian 
looms. An English mechanic, he said, in- 
stead of slaving like a native of Bengal for 
a piece of copper, exacted a shilling a day. 
Other evidence is extant, which proves that a 
shilling a day was the pay to which the English 
manufacturer then thought himself entitled, 
but that he was often forced to work for less. 
The common people of that age were not in 
the habit of meeting for public discussion, of 
haranguing, or of petitioning Parliament. No 
newspaper pleaded their cause. It was in 
rude rhyme that their love and hatred, their 
exultation and their distress, found utterance. 
A great part of their history is to be learned 
only from their ballads. One of the most re- 
markable of the popular lays chanted about 
the streets of Norwich and Leeds in the time 
of Charles the Second may still be read on the 
original broadside. It is the vehement and 
bitter cry of labour against capital. It de- 
scribes the good old times when every artisan 
employed in the woollen manufacture lived as 
well as a farmer. But those times were past. 
Sixpence a day was now all that could be 
earned by hard labour at the loom. If the 
poor complained that they could not live on 
such a pittance, they were told that they were 
free to take it or leave it. For so miserable a 
recompense were the producers of wealth com- 
pelled to toil, rising early and lying down late, 
while the master clothier, eating, sleeping, and 
idling, became rich by their exertions. A 
shilling a day, the poet declares, is what the 



weaver would have, if justice were done. We 
may therefore conclude that, in the generation 
which preceded the Revolution, a workman 
employed in the great staple manufacture of 
England thought himself fairly paid if he 
gained six shillings a week. 

It may here be noticed that the practice of 
setting children prematurely to work, a practice 
which the state, the legitimate protector of 
those who cannot protect themselves, has, in 
our time, wisely and humanely interdicted, 
prevailed in the seventeenth century to an 
extent which, when compared with the extent 
of the manufacturing system, seems almost in- 
credible. At Norwich, the chief seat of the 
clothing trade, a little creature of six years old 
was thought fit for labour. Several writers of 
that time, and among them some who were 
considered as eminently benevolent, mention, 
with exultation, the fact that, in that single 
city, boys and girls of very tender age created 
wealth exceeding what was necessary for their 
own subsistence by twelve thousand pounds 
a year. The more carefully we examine the 
history of the past, the more reason shall we 
find to dissent from those who imagine that 
our age has been fruitful of new social evils. 
The truth is that the evils are, with scarcely 
an exception, old. That which is new is the 
intelligence which discerns and the humanity 
which remedies them. 

When we pass from the weavers of cloth to 
a different class of artisans, our inquiries will 
still lead us to nearly the same conclusions. 
During several generations, the Commissioners 
of Greenwich Hospital have kept a register of 
the wages paid to different classes of workmen 
who have been employed in the repairs of the 
building. From this valuable record it ap- 
pears that, in the course of a hundred and 
twenty years, the daily earnings of the brick- 
layer have risen from half a crown to four 
and tenpencc, those of the mason from half a 
crown to five and threepence, those of the 
carpenter from half a crown to five and five- 
pence, and those of the plumber from three 
shillings to five and sixpence. 

It seems clear, therefore, that the wages of 
labour estimated in money, were, in 1685, not 
more than half of what they now are; and 
there were few articles important to the work- 
ingman of which the price was not, in 1685, 
more than half of what it now is. Beer was 
undoubtedly much cheaper in that age than 
at present. Meat was also cheaper, but was 
still so dear that hundreds of thousands of 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



407 



families scarcely knew the taste of it. In the 
CO 1 of wheat there has been very little change. 
The average price of the quarter, during the 
last twelve years of Charles the Second, was 
fifty shillings. Bread, therefore, such as is 
now given to the inmates of a workhouse, was 
then seldom seen, even on the trencher of a 
yeoman or of a shopkeeper. The great ma- 
jority of the nation lived almost entirely on 
rye, barley, and oats. 

* ***** * 

Of the blessings which civilisation and 
philosophy bring with them a large proportion 
is common to all ranks, and would, if with- 
drawn, be missed as painfully by the labourer 
as by the peer. The market-place which the 
rustic can now reach with his cart in an hour 
was, a hundred and sixty years ago, a day's 
journey from him. The street which now 
affords to the artisan, during the whole night, 
a secure, a convenient, and a brilliantly lighted 
walk was, a hundred and sixty years ago, so 
dark after sunset that he would not have been 
able to see his hand, so ill paved that he would 
have run constant risk of breaking his neck, 
and so ill watched that he would have been in 
imminent danger of being knocked down and 
plundered of his small earnings. Every brick- 
layer who falls from a scaffold, every sweeper 
of a crossing who is run over by a carriage, 
may now have his wounds dressed and his 
limbs set with a skill such as, a hundred and 
sixty years ago, all the wealth of a great lord 
like Ormond, or of a merchant prince like 
Clayton, could not have purchased. Some 
frightful diseases have been extirpated by 
science; and some have been banished by 
police. The term of human life has been 
lengthened over the whole kingdom, and es- 
pecially in the towns. The year 1685 was not 
accounted sickly; yet in the year 1685 more 
than one in twenty-three of the inhabitants of 
the capital died. At present only one inhab- 
itant of the capital in forty dies annually. The 
difference in salubrity between the London of 
the nineteenth century and the London of the 
seventeenth century is very far greater than the 
difference between London in an ordinary year 
and London in a year of cholera. 

Still more important is the benefit which 
all orders of society, and especially the lower 
orders, have derived from the mollifying in- 
fluence of civilisation on the national character. 
The groundwork of that character has indeed 
been the same through many generations, in 
the sense in which the groundwork of the 



character of an individual may be said to be 
the same when he is a rude and thoughtless 
schoolboy and when he is a refined and accom- 
plished man. It is pleasing to reflect that the 
public mind of England has softened while it 
has ripened, and that we have, in the course 
of ages, become, not only a wiser, but also a 
kinder people. There is scarcely a page of 
the history or lighter literature of the seven- 
teenth century which does not contain some 
proof that our ancestors were less humane 
than their posterity. The discipline of work- 
shops, of schools, of private families, though 
not more efficient than at present, was infinitely 
harsher. Masters, well born and bred, were in 
the habit of beating their servants. Pedagogues 
knew no way of imparting knowledge but by 
beating their pupils. Husbands, of decent 
station, were not ashamed to beat their wives. 
The implacability of hostile factions was such 
as we can scarcely conceive. Whigs were dis- 
posed to murmur because Stafford was suffered 
to die without seeing his bowels burned before 
his face. Tories reviled and insulted Russell 
as his coach passed from the Tower to the 
scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields. As little 
mercy was shown by the populace to sufferers 
of a humbler rank. If an offender was put 
into the pillory, it was well if he escaped with 
life from the shower of brickbats and paving 
stones. If he was tied to the cart's tail, the 
crowd pressed round him, imploring the hang- 
man to give it the fellow well, and make him 
howl. Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure 
to Bridewell on court days for the purpose of 
seeing the wretched women who beat hemp 
there whipped. A man pressed to death for 
refusing to plead, a woman burned for coining, 
excited less sympathy than is now felt for a 
galled horse or an overdriven ox. Fights 
compared with which a boxing-match is a 
refined and humane spectacle were among the 
favourite diversions of a large part of the 
town. Multitudes assembled to see gladiators 
hack each other to pieces with deadly weapons, 
and shouted with delight when one of the com- 
batants lost a finger or an eye. The prisons 
were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime 
and of every disease. At the assizes the lean 
and yellow culprits brought with them from 
their cells to the dock an atmosphere of stench 
and pestilence which sometimes avenged them 
signally on bench, bar, and jury. But on all 
this misery society looked with profound in- 
difference. Nowhere could be found that 
sensitive and restless compassion which has, 



4o8 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 



in our time, extended a powerful protection to 
the factory child, to the Hindoo widow, to the 
negro slave, which pries into the stores and 
water-casks of every emigrant ship, which 
winces at every lash laid on the back of a 
drunken soldier, which will not suffer the thief 
in the hulks to be ill fed or overworked, and 
which has repeatedly endeavoured to save the 
life even of the murderer. It is true that 
compassion ought, like all other feelings, to be 
under the government of reason, and has, for 
want of such government, produced some 
ridiculous and some deplorable effects. But 
the more we study the annals of the past, the 
more shall we rejoice that we live in a merciful 
age, in an age in which cruelty is abhorred, 
and in which pain, even when deserved, is 
inflicted reluctantly and from a sense of duty. 
Every class doubtless has gained largely by 
this great moral change: but the class which 
has gained most is the poorest, the most de- 
pendent, and the most defenceless. 

The general effect of the evidence which has 
been submitted to the reader seems hardly to 
admit of doubt. Yet, in spite of evidence, 
many will still image to themselves the Eng- 
land of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country 
than the England in which we live. It may 
at first sight seem strange that society, while 
constantly moving forward with eager speed, 
should be constantly looking backward with 
tender regret. But these two propensities, in- 
consistent as they may appear, can easily be 
resolved into the same principle. Both spring 
from our impatience of the state in which we 
actually are. That impatience, while it stimu- 
lates us to surpass preceding generations, dis- 
poses us to overrate their happiness. It is, 
in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful in 
us to be constantly discontented with a condi- 
tion which is constantly improving. But, in 
truth, there is constant improvement precisely 
because there is constant discontent. If we 
were perfectly satisfied with the present, we 
should cease to contrive, to labour, and to 
save with a view to the future. And it is 
natural that, being dissatisfied with the present, 
we should form a too favourable estimate of the 
past. 

In truth we are under a deception similar to 
that which misleads the traveller in the Arabian 



desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and 
bare; but far in advance, and far in the rear, 
is the semblance of refreshing waters. The 
pilgrims hasten forward and find nothing but 
sand where an hour before they had seen a 
lake. They turn their eyes and see a lake 
where an hour before they were toiling through 
sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt na- 
tions through every stage of the long progress 
from poverty and barbarism to the highest 
degrees of opulence and civilisation. But, if 
we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we 
shall find it recede before us into the regions 
of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion 
to place the golden age of England in times 
when noblemen were destitute of comforts the 
want of which would be intolerable to a modern 
footman, when farmers and shopkeepers break- 
fasted on loaves the very sight of which would 
raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when to 
have a clean shirt once a week was a privilege 
reserved for the higher class of gentry, when 
men died faster in the purest country air than 
they now die in the most pestilential lanes of 
our towns, and when men died faster in the 
lanes of our towns than they now die on the 
coast of Guiana. We too shall, in our turn, 
be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. 
It may well be, in the twentieth century, that 
the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself 
miserably paid with twenty shillings a week; 
that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive 
ten shillings a day; that labouring men may 
be as little used to dine without meat as they 
now are to eat rye bread; that sanitary police 
and medical discoveries may have added 
several more years to the average length of 
human life; that numerous comforts and 
luxuries which are now unknown, or confined 
to a few, may be within the reach of every 
diligent and thrifty workingman. And yet it 
may then be the mode to assert that the in- 
crease of wealth and the progress of science 
have benefited the few at the expense of the 
many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Vic- 
toria as the time when England was truly 
merry England, when all classes were bound 
together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich 
did not grind the faces of the poor, and when 
the poor did not envy the splendour of the 
rich. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. II 



JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 

(1801-1890) 

From THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY 

DISCOURSE VI 

Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning 



I suppose the primd-facie view which the 
public at large would take of a University, 
considering it as a place of Education, is noth- 
ing more or less than a place for acquiring a 
great deal of knowledge on a great many sub- 
jects. Memory is one of the first developed 
of the mental faculties; a boy's business when 
he goes to school is to learn, that is, to store 
up things in his memory. For some years 
his intellect is little more than an instrument 
for taking in facts, or a receptacle for storing 
them ; he welcomes them as fast as they come 
to him; he lives on what is without; he has 
his eyes ever about him; he has a lively sus- 
ceptibility of impressions; he imbibes infor- 
mation of every kind; and little does he make 
his own in a true sense of the word, living 
rather upon his neighbours all around him. 
He has opinions, religious, political, and liter- 
ary, and, for a boy, is very positive in them 
and sure about them; but he gets them from 
his schoolfellows, or his masters, or his parents, 
as the case may be. Such as he is in his other 
relations, such also is he in his school exercises; 
his mind is observant, sharp, ready, retentive; 
he is almost passive in the acquisition of 
knowledge. I say this in no disparagement of 
the idea of a clever boy. Geography, chro- 
nology, history, language, natural history, he 
heaps up the matter of these studies as treas- 
ures for a future day. It is the seven years of 
plenty with him : he gathers in by handfuls, 
like the Egyptians, without counting; and 
though, as time goes on, there is exercise for 
his argumentative powers in the Elements of 
Mathematics, and for his taste in the Poets 
and Orators, still, while at school, or at least, 



till quite the last years of his time, he acquires, 
and little more; and when he is leaving for 
the University, he is mainly the creature of 
foreign influences and circumstances, and 
made up of accidents, homogeneous or not, 
as the case may be. Moreover, the moral 
habits, which are a boy's praise, encourage 
and assist this result; that is, diligence, assi- 
duity, regularity, despatch, persevering appli- 
cation ; for these are the direct conditions of 
acquisition, and naturally lead to it. Acquire- 
ments, again, are emphatically producible, and 
at a moment; they are a something to show, 
both for master and scholar; an audience, 
even though ignorant themselves of the sub- 
jects of an examination, can comprehend when 
questions are answered and when they are 
not. Here again is a reason why mental cul- 
ture is in the minds of men identified with the 
acquisition of knowledge. 

The same notion possesses the public mind, 
when it passes on from the thought of a school 
to that of a University: and with the best of 
reasons so far as this, that there is no true 
culture without acquirements, and that phi- 
losophy presupposes knowledge. It requires a 
great deal of reading, or a wide range of in- 
formation, to warrant us in putting forth our 
opinions on any serious subject; and without 
such learning the most original mind may be 
able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to 
perplex, but not to come to any useful result 
or any trustworthy conclusion. There are in- 
deed persons who profess a different view of 
the matter, and even act upon it. Every now 
and then you will find a person of vigorous 
or fertile mind, who relies upon his own re- 
sources, despises all former authors, and gives 
the world, with the utmost fearlessness, his 
views upon religion, or history, or any other 
popular subject. And his works may sell for 
a while; he may get a name in his day; but 
this will be all. His readers are sure to find 
on the long run that his doctrines are mere 
theories, and not the expression of facts, that 
they are chaff instead of bread, and then his 
popularity drops as suddenly as it rose. 



409 



4io 



JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 



Knowledge then is the indispensable condi- 
tion of expansion of mind, and the instrument 
of attaining to it; this cannot be denied, it is 
ever to he insisted on; I begin with it as a 
first principle; however, the very truth of it 
carries men too far, and confirms to them the 
notion that it is the whole of the matter. A 
narrow mind is thought to be that which con- 
tains little knowledge; and an enlarged mind, 
that which holds a great deal; and what 
seems to put the matter beyond dispute is, 
the fact of the great number of studies which 
are pursued in a University, by its very pro- 
fession. Lectures are given on every kind of 
subject ; examinations are held ; prizes awarded. 
There are moral, metaphysical, physical Pro- 
fessors; Professors of languages, of history, of 
mathematics, of experimental science. Lists 
of questions are published, wonderful for their 
range and depth, variety and difficulty; treatises 
are written, which carry upon their very face the 
evidence of extensive reading or multifarious 
information; what then is wanting for mental 
culture to a person of large reading and scien- 
tific attainments? what is grasp of mind but 
acquirement? where shall philosophical repose 
be found, but in the consciousness and enjoy- 
ment of large intellectual possessions? 

And yet this notion is, I conceive, a mis- 
take, and my present business is to show that 
it is one, and that the end of a Liberal Educa- 
tion is not mere knowledge, or knowledge con- 
sidered in its matter; and I shall best attain 
my object, by actually setting down some 
cases, which will be generally granted to be 
instances of the process of enlightenment or 
enlargement of mind, and others which are not, 
and thus, by the comparison, you will be able 
to judge for yourselves, Gentlemen, whether 
Knowledge, that is, acquirement, is after all 
the real principle of the enlargement, or 
whether that principle is not rather something 
beyond it. 



For instance, let a person, whose experience 
has hitherto been confined to the more calm 
and unpretending scenery of these islands, 
whether here or in England, go for the first 
time into parts where physical nature puts on 
her wilder and more awful forms, whether at 
home or abroad, as into mountainous districts; 
or let one, who has ever lived in a quiet village, 
go for the first time to a great metropolis, — 
then I suppose he will have a sensation which 
perhaps he never had before. He has a feel- 



ing not in addition or increase of former feel- 
ings, but of something different in its nature. 
He will perhaps be borne forward, and find 
for a time that he has lost his bearings. He 
has made a certain progress, and he has a 
consciousness of mental enlargement; he does 
not stand where he did, he has a new centre, 
and a range of thoughts to which he was lie fore 
a stranger. 

Again, the view of the heavens which the 
telescope opens upon us, if allowed to fill and 
possess the mind, may almost whirl it round 
and make it dizzy. It brings in a flood of 
ideas, and is rightly called an intellectual en- 
largement, whatever is meant by the term. 

And so again, the sight of beasts of prey 
and other foreign animals, their strangeness, 
the originality (if I may use the term) of their 
forms and gestures and habits and their va- 
riety and independence of each other, throw 
us out of ourselves into another creation, and 
as if under another Creator, if I may so ex- 
press the temptation which may come on the 
mind. We seem to have new faculties, or a 
new exercise for our faculties, by this addition 
to our knowledge; like a prisoner, who, hav- 
ing been accustomed to wear manacles or 
fetters, suddenly finds his arms and legs free. 

Hence Physical Science generally, in all its 
departments, as bringing before us the exu- 
berant riches and resources, yet the orderly 
course, of the Universe, elevates and excites 
the student, and at first, I may say, almost 
takes away his breath, while in time it exercises 
a tranquillising influence upon him. 

Again, the study of history is said to enlarge 
and enlighten the mind, and why? because, 
as I conceive, it gives it a power of judging of 
passing events, and of all events, and a con- 
scious superiority over them, which before it 
did not possess. 

And in like manner, what is called seeing 
the world, entering into active life, going into 
society, travelling, gaining acquaintance with 
the various classes of the community, coming 
into contact with the principles and modes of 
thought of various parties, interests, and races, 
their views, aims, habits and manners, their 
religious creeds and forms of worship, — gain- 
ing experience how various yet how alike men 
are, how low-minded, how bad, how opposed, 
yet how confident in their opinions; all this 
exerts a perceptible influence upon the mind, 
which it is impossible to mistake, be it good 
or be it bad, and is popularly called its en- 
largement. 



THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY 



411 



And then again, the first time the mind 
comes across the arguments and speculations 
of unbelievers, and feels what a novel light 
they cast upon what he has hitherto accounted 
sacred; and still more, if it gives in to them 
and embraces them, and throws off as so 
much prejudice what it has hitherto held, 
and, as if waking from a dream, begins to 
realise to its imagination that there is now no 
such thing as law and the transgression of 
law, that sin is a phantom, and punishment a 
bugbear, that it is free to sin, free to enjoy 
the world and the flesh; and still further, 
when it does enjoy them, and reflects that it 
may think and hold just what it will, that "the 
world is all before it where to choose," and 
what system to build up as its own private 
persuasion ; when this torrent of wilful thoughts 
rushes over and inundates it, who will deny 
that the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or 
what the mind takes for knowledge, has made 
it one of the gods, with a sense of expansion 
and elevation, — an intoxication in reality, 
still, so far as the subjective state of the mind 
goes, an illumination? Hence the fanaticism 
of individuals or nations, who suddenly cast 
off their Maker. Their eyes are opened; and, 
like the judgment-stricken king in the Tragedy, 
they see two suns, and a magic universe, out 
of which they look back upon their former 
state of faith and innocence with a sort of 
contempt and indignation, as if they were then 
but fools, and the dupes of imposture. 

On the other hand, Religion has its own 
enlargement, and an enlargement, not of tu- 
mult, but of peace. It is often remarked of 
uneducated persons, who have hitherto thought 
little of the unseen world, that, on their turn- 
ing to God, looking into themselves, regulat- 
ing their hearts, reforming their conduct, and 
meditating on death and judgment, heaven 
and hell, they seem to become, in point of 
intellect, different beings from what they were. 
Before, they took things as they came, and 
thought no more of one thing than another. 
But now every event has a meaning; they 
have their own estimate of whatever happens 
to them ; they are mindful of times and seasons, 
and compare the present with the past; and the 
world, no longer dull, monotonous, unprofitable, 
and hopeless, is a various and complicated drama, 
with parts and an object, and an awful moral. 



Now from these instances, to which many 
more might be added, it is plain, first, that 



the communication of knowledge certainly is 
either a condition or the means of that sense 
of enlargement or enlightenment, of which at 
this day we hear so much in certain quarters: 
this cannot be denied; but next, it is equally 
plain, that such communication is not the whole 
of the process. The enlargement consists, 
not merely in the passive reception into the 
mind of a number of ideas hitherto unknown 
to it, but in the mind's energetic and simul- 
taneous action upon and towards and among 
those new ideas, which are rushing in upon it. 
It is the action of a formative power, reducing 
to order and meaning the matter of our acquire- 
ments; it is a making the objects of our know- 
ledge subjectively our own, or, to use a familiar 
word, it is a digestion of what we receive, into 
the substance of our previous state of thought; 
and without this no enlargement is said to 
follow. There is no enlargement, unless there 
be a comparison of ideas one with another, 
as they come before the mind, and a systematis- 
ing of them. We feel our minds to be growing 
and expanding then, when we not only learn, 
but refer what we learn to what we know al- 
ready. It is not the mere addition to our 
knowledge that is the illumination; but the 
locomotion, the movement onwards, of that 
mental centre, to which both what we know, 
and what we are learning, the accumulating 
mass of our acquirements, gravitates. And 
therefore a truly great intellect, and recognised 
to be such by the common opinion of mankind, 
such as the intellect of Aristotle, or of St. 
Thomas, or of Newton, or of Goethe, (I pur- 
posely take instances within and without the 
Catholic pale, when I would speak of the 
intellect as such,) is one which takes a connected 
view of old and new, past and present, far and 
near, and which has an insight into the in- 
fluence of all these one on another; without 
which there is no whole, and no centre. It 
possesses the knowledge, not only of things, 
but also of their mutual and true relations; 
knowledge, not merely considered as acquire- 
ment, but as philosophy. 

Accordingly, when this analytical, distribu- 
tive, harmonising process is away, the mind 
experiences no enlargement, and is not reck- 
oned as enlightened or comprehensive, whatever 
it may add to its knowledge. For instance, a 
great memory, as I have already said, does not 
make a philosopher, any more than a dictionary 
can be called a grammar. There are men who 
embrace in their minds a vast multitude of 
ideas, but with little sensibility about their 



412 



JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 



real relations towards each other. These may 
be antiquarians, annalists, naturalists; they 
may be learned in the law; they may be versed 
in statistics; they are most useful in their own 
place; I should shrink from speaking dis- 
respectfully of them; still, there is nothing in 
such attainments to guarantee the absence of 
narrowness of mind. If they are nothing more 
than well-read men, or men of information, 
they have not what specially deserves the name 
of culture of mind, or fulfils the type of Liberal 
Education. 

In like manner, we sometimes fall in with 
persons who have seen much of the world, 
and of the men who, in their day, have played 
a conspicuous part in it, but who generalise 
nothing, and have no observation, in the true 
sense of the word. They abound in informa- 
tion in detail, curious and entertaining, about 
men and things; and, having lived under the 
influence of no very clear or settled principles, 
religious or political, they speak of every one 
and everything, only as so many phenomena, 
which are complete in themselves, and lead to 
nothing, not discussing them, or teaching any 
truth, or instructing the hearer, but simply 
talking. No one would say that these persons, 
well informed as they are, had attained to any 
great culture of intellect or to philosophy. 

The case is the same still more strikingly 
where the persons in question are beyond dis- 
pute men of inferior powers and deficient edu- 
cation. Perhaps they have been much in for- 
eign countries, and they receive, in a passive, 
otiose, unfruitful way, the various facts which 
are forced upon them there. Seafaring men, 
for example, range from one end of the earth 
to the other; but the multiplicity of external 
objects which they have encountered forms 
no symmetrical and consistent picture upon 
their imagination ; they see the tapestry of 
human life, as it were, on the wrong side, and it 
tells no story. They sleep, and they rise up, 
and they find themselves, now in Europe, now 
in Asia; they see visions of great cities and wild 
regions; they are in the marts of commerce, 
or amid the islands of the South; they gaze on 
Pompey's Pillar, or on the Andes; and noth- 
ing which meets them carries them forward or 
backward, to any idea beyond itself. Nothing 
has a drift or relation ; nothing has a history or 
a promise. Everything stands by itself, and 
comes and goes in its turn, like the shifting 
scenes of a show, which leave the spectator 
where he was. Perhaps you are near such a 
man on a particular occasion, and expect him 



to be shocked or perplexed at something which 
occurs; but one thing is much the same to him 
'as another, or, if he is perplexed, it is as not 
knowing what to say, whether it is right to 
admire, or to ridicule, or to disapprove, while 
conscious that some expression of opinion is 
expected from him ; for in fact he has no stand- 
ard of judgment at all, and no landmarks to 
guide him to a conclusion. Such is mere ac- 
quisition, and, I repeat, no one would dream 
of calling it philosophy. 



Instances, such as these, confirm, by the con- 
trast, the conclusion I have already drawn from 
those which preceded them. That only is true 
enlargement of mind which is the power of 
viewing many things at once as one whole, of 
referring them severally to their true plan- in 
the universal system, of understanding their 
respective values, and determining their mutual 
dependence. Thus is that form of Universal 
Knowledge, of which I have on a former oc- 
casion spoken, set up in the individual intellect, 
and constitutes its perfection. Possessed of 
this real illumination, the mind never views 
any part of the extended subject-matter of 
Knowledge without recollecting that it is but 
a part, or without the associations which spring 
from this recollection. It makes everything in 
some sort lead to everything else; it would 
communicate the image of the whole to every 
separate portion, till that whole becomes in 
imagination like a spirit, everywhere pervading 
and penetrating its component parts, and giving 
them one definite meaning. Just as our bodily 
organs, when mentioned, recall their function 
in the body, as the word "creation" suggests 
the Creator, and "subjects" a sovereign, so, 
in the mind of the Philosopher, as we are ab- 
stractedly conceiving of him, the elements of 
the physical and moral world, sciences, arts, 
pursuits, ranks, offices, events, opinions, indi- 
vidualities, are all viewed as one, with correla- 
tive functions, and as gradually by successive 
combinations converging, one and all, to the 
true centre. 

To have even a portion of this illuminative 
reason and true philosophy is the highest state 
to which nature can aspire, in the way of in- 
tellect; it puts the mind above the influence 
of chance and necessity, above anxiety, sus- 
pense, unsettlcment, and superstition, which is 
the lot of the many. Men, whose minds are 
possessed with some one object, take exag- 






THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY 



413 



gcrated views of its importance, are feverish in 
the pursuit of it, make it the measure of things 
which are utterly foreign to it, and are startled 
and despond if it happens to fail them. They 
are ever in alarm or in transport. Those on 
the other hand who have no object or principle 
whatever to hold by, lose their way, every step 
they take. They are thrown out, and do not 
know what to think or say, at every fresh junc- 
ture; they have no view of persons, or occur- 
rences, or facts, which come suddenly upon 
them, and they hang upon the opinion of others, 
for want of internal resources. But the in- 
tellect, which has been disciplined to the per- 
fection of its powers, which knows, and thinks 
while it knows, which has learned to leaven the 
dense mass of facts and events with the elastic 
force of reason, such an intellect cannot be 
partial, cannot be exclusive, cannot be impetu- 
ous, cannot be at a loss, cannot but be patient, 
collected, and majestically calm, because it dis- 
cerns the end in every beginning, the origin in 
every end, the law in every interruption, the limit 
in each delay; because it ever knows where it 
stands, and how its path lies from one point to 
another. It is the Te-rpaycovos of the Peripatetic, 
and has the "nil admirari" of the Stoic, — 

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum 
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari. 1 

There are men who, when in difficulties, origi- 
nate at the moment vast ideas or dazzling 
projects; who, under the influence of excite- 
ment, are able to cast a light, almost as if from 
inspiration, on a subject or course of action 
which comes before them ; who have a sudden 
presence of mind equal to any emergency, 
rising with the occasion, and an undaunted 
magnanimous bearing, and an energy and 
keenness which is but made intense by oppo- 
sition. This is genius, this is heroism; it is 
the exhibition of a natural gift, which no culture 
can teach, at which no Institution can aim; 
here, on the contrary, we are concerned, not 
with mere nature, but with training and teach- 
ing. That perfection of the Intellect, which 
is the result of Education, and its beau ideal, 
to be imparted to individuals in their respective 
measures, is the clear, calm, accurate vision 
and comprehension of all things, as far as the 
finite mind can embrace them, each in its place, 
and with its own characteristics upon it. It 

1 Fortunate is he who is able to understand things in 
their real nature and can trample upon fears of all sorts 
and inexorable fate and the noise of greedy Acheron. 



is almost prophetic from its knowledge of his- 
tory; it is almost heart -searching from its 
knowledge of human nature; it has almost 
supernatural charity from its freedom from 
littleness and prejudice ; it has almost the repose 
of faith, because nothing can startle it; it has 
almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly 
contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal 
order of things and the music of the spheres. 



And now, if I may take for granted that the 
true and adequate end of intellectual training 
and of a University is not Learning or Acquire- 
ment, but rather, is Thought or Reason exer- 
cised upon Knowledge, or what may be called 
Philosophy, I shall be in a position to explain 
the various mistakes which at the present day 
beset the subject of University Education. 

I say then, if we would improve the intellect, 
first of all, we must ascend ; we cannot gain real 
knowledge on a level; we must generalise, we 
must reduce to method, we must have a grasp 
of principles, and group and shape our acqui- 
sitions by means of them. It matters not 
whether our field of operation be wide or 
limited; in every case, to command it, is 
to mount above it. Who has not felt the irri- 
tation of mind and impatience created by a 
deep, rich country, visited for the first time, with 
winding lanes, and high hedges, and green 
steeps, and tangled woods, and everything 
smiling indeed, but in a maze? The same 
feeling comes upon us in a strange city, when 
we have no map of its streets. Hence you hear 
of practised travellers, when they first come 
into a place, mounting some high hill or church 
tower, by way of reconnoitring its neighbour- 
hood. In like manner, you must be above your 
knowledge, not under it, or it will oppress you ; 
and the more you have of it, the greater will be 
the load. The learning of a Salmasius or a 
Burman, unless you are its master will be your 
tyrant. "Imperat aut servit"; 1 if you can 
wield it with a strong arm, it is a great weapon ; 
otherwise, 

Vis concili expers 

Mole ruit sua ; 2 

You will be overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by the 
heavy wealth which you have exacted from 
tributary generations. 

Instances abound; there are authors who 
are as pointless as they are inexhaustible in 

1 It either rules or serves. 2 Power without judg- 
ment falls of its own weight. 



414 



JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 



their literary resources. They measure know- 
ledge by bulk, as it lies in the rude block, with- 
out symmetry, without design. How many 
commentators are there on the Classics, how 
many on Holy Scripture, from whom we rise 
up, wondering at the learning which has passed 
before us, and wondering why it passed ! How 
many writers are there of Ecclesiastical History, 
such as Mosheim or Du Pin, who, breaking up 
their subject into details, destroy its life, and 
defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about 
the parts ! The Sermons, again, of the English 
Divines in the seventeenth century, how often 
are they mere repertories of miscellaneous and 
officious learning! Of course Catholics also 
may read without thinking; and in their case, 
equally as with Protestants, it holds good, that 
such knowledge is unworthy of the name, 
knowledge which they have not thought 
through, and thought out. Such readers are 
only possessed by their knowledge, not possessed 
of it ; nay, in matter of fact they are often even 
carried away by it, without any volition of their 
own. Recollect, the Memory can tyrannise, 
as well as the Imagination. Derangement, I 
believe, has been considered as a loss of con- 
trol over the sequence of ideas. The mind, 
once set in motion, is henceforth deprived of 
the power of initiation, and becomes the victim 
of a train of associations, one thought sug- 
gesting another, in the way of cause and effect, 
as if by a mechanical process, or some physical 
necessity. No one, who has had experience of 
men of studious habits, but must recognise 
the existence of a parallel phenomenon in the 
case of those who have over-stimulated the 
Memory. In such persons Reason acts almost 
as feebly and as impotently as in the madman ; 
once fairly started on any subject whatever, 
they have no power of self-control; they pas- 
sively endure the succession of impulses which 
are evolved out of the original exciting cause; 
they are passed on from one idea to another and 
go steadily forward, plodding along one line 
of thought in spite of the amplest concessions 
of the hearer, or wandering from it in endless 
digression in spite of his remonstrances. Now, 
if, as is very certain, no one would envy the 
madman the glow and originality of his con- 
ceptions, why must we extol the cultivation of 
that intellect, which is the prey, not indeed of 
barren fancies but of barren facts, of random 
intrusions from without, though not of morbid 
imaginations from within ? And in thus speak- 
ing, I am not denying that a strong and ready 
memory is in itself a real treasure; I am, not 



disparaging a well-stored mind, though it be 
nothing besides, provided it be sober, any more 
than I would despise a bookseller's shop: — it 
is of great value to others, even when not so to 
the owner. Nor am I banishing, far from it, 
the possessors of deep and multifarious learning 
from my ideal University; they adorn it in the 
eyes of men ; I do but say that they constitute 
no type of the results at which it aims ; that it 
is no great gain to the intellect to have enlarged 
the memory at the expense of faculties which 
are indisputably higher. 



Nor indeed am I supposing that there is 
any great danger, at least in this day, of over- 
education; the danger is on the other side. 
I will tell you, Gentlemen, what has been the 
practical error of the last twenty years, — not 
to load the memory of the student with a mass 
of undigested knowledge, but to force upon him 
so much that he has rejected all. It has been 
the error of distracting and enfeebling the mind 
by an unmeaning profusion of subjects; of im- 
plying that a smattering in a dozen branches 
of study is not shallowness, which it really is, 
but enlargement, which it is not; of consider- 
ing an acquaintance with the learned names 
of things and persons, and the possession of 
clever duodecimos, and attendance on eloquent 
lecturers, and membership with scientific insti- 
tutions, and the sight of the experiments of a 
platform and the specimens of a museum, that 
all this was not dissipation of mind,- but pro- 
gress. All things now are to be learned at once, 
not first one thing, then another, not one well, 
but many badly. Learning is to be without 
exertion, without attention, without toil; 
without grounding, without advance, without 
finishing. There is to be nothing individual 
in it; and this, forsooth, is the wonder of the 
age. What the steam engine does with matter, 
the printing press is to do with mind; it is to 
act mechanically, and the population is to be 
passively, almost unconsciously enlightened, 
by the mere multiplication and dissemination 
of volumes. Whether it be the school boy 
or the school girl, or the youth at college, or 
the mechanic in the town, or the politician in 
the senate, all have been the victims in one way 
or other of this most preposterous and perni- 
cious of delusions. Wise men have lifted up 
their voices in vain ; and at length, lest their 
own institutions should be outshone and should 
disappear in the folly of the hour, they have 




THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY 



415 



been obliged, as far as they could with a good 
conscience, to humour a spirit which they could 
not withstand, and make temporising conces- 
sions at which they could not but inwardly smile. 
It must not be supposed that, because I so 
speak, therefore I have some sort of fear of the 
education of the people: on the contrary, the 
more education they have, the better, so that 
it is really education. Nor am I an enemy 
to the cheap publication of scientific and 
literary works, which is now in vogue: on the 
contrary, I consider it a great advantage, con- 
venience, and gain; that is, to those to whom 
education has given a capacity for using them. 
Further, I consider such innocent recreations as 
science and literature are able to furnish will 
be a very fit occupation of the thoughts and the 
leisure of young persons, and may be made the 
means of keeping them from bad employments 
and bad companions. Moreover, as to that 
superficial acquaintance with chemistry, and 
geology, and astronomy, and political economy, 
and modern history, and biography, and other 
branches of knowledge, which periodical liter- 
ature and occasional lectures and scientific 
institutions diffuse through the community, I 
think it a graceful accomplishment, and a suit- 
able, nay, in this day a necessary accomplish- 
ment, in the case of educated men. Nor, 
lastly, am I disparaging or discouraging the 
thorough acquisition of any one of these studies, 
or denying that, as far as it goes, such thorough 
acquisition is a real education of the mind. 
All I say is, call things by their right names, and 
do not confuse together ideas which are es- 
sentially different. A thorough knowledge of 
one science and a superficial acquaintance 
with many, are not the same thing; a smatter- 
ing of a hundred things or a memory for detail, 
is not a philosophical or comprehensive view. 
Recreations are not education; accomplish- 
ments are not education. Do not say, the 
people must be educated, when, after all, 
you only mean, amused, refreshed, soothed, 
put into good spirits and good humour, or kept 
from vicious excesses. I do not say that such 
amusements, such occupations of mind, are 
not a great gain; but they are not education. 
You may as well call drawing and fencing edu- 
cation, as a general knowledge of botany or 
conchology. Stuffing birds or playing stringed 
instruments is an elegant pastime, and a re- 
source to the idle, but it is not education; 
it does not form or cultivate the intellect. 
Education is a high word ; it is the preparation 
for knowledge, and it is the imparting of know- 



ledge in proportion to that preparation. We 
require intellectual eyes to know withal, as 
bodily eyes for sight. We need both objects 
and organs intellectual; we cannot gain them 
without setting about it; we cannot gain them 
in our sleep, or by hap-hazard. The best 
telescope does not dispense with eyes; the 
printing press or the lecture room will assist 
us greatly, but we must be true to ourselves, 
we must be parties in the work. A University 
is, according to the usual designation, an Alma 
Mater, knowing her children one by one, not 
a foundry or a mint, or a treadmill. 

9 

I protest to you, Gentlemen, that if I had to 
choose between a so-called University, which 
dispensed with residence and tutorial super- 
intendence, and gave its degrees to any person 
who passed an examination in a wide range of 
subjects, and a University which had no pro- 
fessors or examinations at all, but merely 
brought a number of young men together for 
three or four years, and then sent them away 
as the University of Oxford is said to have 
done some sixty years since, if I were asked 
which of these two methods was the better 
discipline of the intellect, — mind, I do not 
say which is morally the better, for it is plain 
that compulsory study must be a good and 
idleness an intolerable mischief, — but if I 
must determine which of the two courses 
was the more successful in training, moulding, 
enlarging the mind, which sent out men the 
more fitted for their secular duties, which pro- 
duced better public men, men of the world, 
men whose names would descend to posterity, 
I have no hesitation in giving the preference 
to that University which did nothing, over that 
which exacted of its members an acquaintance 
with every science under the sun. And, para- 
dox as this may seem, still if results be the test 
of systems, the influence of the public schools 
and colleges of England, in the course of the 
last century, at least will bear out one side of 
the contrast as I have drawn it. What would 
come, on the other hand, of the ideal systems 
of education which have fascinated the imagi- 
nation of this age, could they ever take effect, 
and whether they would not produce a genera- 
tion frivolous, narrow-minded, and resource- 
less, intellectually considered, is a fair subject 
for debate; but so far is certain, that the Uni- 
versities and scholastic establishments, to which 
I refer, and which did little more than bring 



4i6 



JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 



together first boys and then youths in large 
numbers, these institutions, with miserable de- 
formities on the side of morals, with a hollow 
profession of Christianity, and a heathen code 
of ethics, — I say, at least they can boast of a 
succession of heroes and statesmen, of literary 
men and philosophers, of men conspicuous for 
great natural virtues, for habits of business, 
for knowledge of life, for practical judgment, 
for cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who 
have made England what it is, — able to sub- 
due the earth, able to domineer over Catholics. 

How is this to be explained? I suppose as 
follows. When a multitude of young men, 
keen, open-hearted, sympathetic, and observ- 
ant, as young men are, come together and 
freely mix with each other, they are sure to 
learn one from another, even if there be no 
one to teach them; the conversation of all is 
a series of lectures to each, and they gain for 
themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter 
of thought, and distinct principles for judging 
and acting, day by day. An infant has to 
learn the meaning of the information which its 
senses convey to it, and this seems to be its 
employment. It fancies all that the eye pre- 
sents to it to be close to it, till it actually 
learns the contrary, and thus by practice does 
it ascertain the relations and uses of those first 
elements of knowledge which are necessary 
for its animal existence. A parallel teaching 
is necessary for our social being, and it is se- 
cured by a large school or a college; and this 
effect may be fairly called in its own depart- 
ment an enlargement of mind. It is seeing the 
world on a small field with little trouble; for 
the pupils or students come from very different 
places, and with widely different notions, and 
there is much to generalise, much to adjust, 
much to eliminate, there are interrelations to 
be defined, and conventional rules to be es- 
tablished, in the process, by which the whole 
assemblage is moulded together, and gains one 
tone and one character. 

Let it be clearly understood, I repeat it, 
that I am not taking into account moral or 
religious considerations; I am but saying 
that that youthful community will constitute 
a whole, it will embody a specific idea, it will 
represent a doctrine, it will administer a code 
of conduct, and it will furnish principles of 
thought and action. It will give birth to a living 
teaching, which in course of time will take the 
shape of a self-perpetuating tradition, or a genius 
loci, as it is sometimes called ; which haunts the 
home where it has been born, and which imbues 



and forms, more or less, and one by one, every 
individual who is successively brought under its 
shadow. Thus it is that, independent of direct 
instruction on the part of Superiors, there is a 
sort of self-education in the academic institu- 
tions of Protestant England; a characteristic 
tone of thought, a recognised standard of judg- 
ment is found in them, which, as developed in 
the individual who is submitted to it, becomes 
a twofold source of strength to him, both from 
the distinct stamp it impresses on his mind, 
and from the bond of union which it creates 
between him and others, — effects which are 
shared by the authorities of the place, for they 
themselves have been educated in it, and at 
all times are exposed to the influence of its 
ethical atmosphere. Here then is a real teach- 
ing, whatever be its standards and principles, 
true or false; and it at least tends towards cul- 
tivation of the intellect; it at least recognises 
that knowledge is something more than a sort 
of passive reception of scraps and details; it is 
a something, and it does a something, which 
never will issue from the most strenuous efforts 
of a set of teachers, with no mutual sympathies 
and no intercommunion, of a set of examiners 
with no opinions which they dare profess, and 
with no common principles, who are teaching 
or questioning a set of youths who do not know 
them, and do not know each other, on a large 
number of subjects, different in kind, and 
connected by no wide philosophy, three times 
a week, or three times a year, or once in three 
years, in chill lecture-rooms or on a pompous 
anniversary. 



Nay, self-education in any shape, in the most 
restricted sense, is preferable to a system of 
teaching which, professing so much, really 
does so little for the mind. Shut your College 
gates against the votary of knowledge, throw 
him back upon the searchings and the efforts 
of his own mind; he will gain by being spared 
an entrance into your Babel. Few indeed 
there are who can dispense with the stimulus 
and support of instructors, or will do anything 
at all, if left to themselves. And fewer still 
(though such great minds are to be found), 
who will not, from such unassisted attempts, 
contract a self-reliance and a self-esteem, which 
are not only moral evils, but serious hindrances 
to the attainment of truth. And next to none, 
perhaps, or none, who will not be reminded 
from time to time of the disadvantage under 
which they lie, by their imperfect grounding, 



GEORGE BORROW 



417 



by the breaks, deficiencies, and irregularities 
of their knowledge, by the eccentricity of opin- 
ion and the confusion of principle which 
they exhibit. They will be too often ignorant 
of what every one knows and takes for granted, 
of that multitude of small truths which fall 
upon the mind like dust, impalpable and ever 
accumulating; they may be unable to converse, 
they may argue perversely, they may pride 
themselves on their worst paradoxes or their 
grossest truisms, they may be full of their own 
mode of viewing things, unwilling to be put out 
of their way, slow to enter into the minds of 
others; — but, with these and whatever other 
liabilities upon their heads, they are likely to 
have more thought, more mind, more philoso- 
phy, more true enlargement, than those ear- 
nest but ill-used persons, who are forced to load 
their minds with a score of subjects against 
an examination, who have too much on their 
hands to indulge themselves in thinking or 
investigation, who devour premiss and conclu- 
sion together with indiscriminate greediness, 
who hold whole sciences on faith, and commit 
demonstrations to memory, and who too of- 
ten, as might be expected, when their period of 
education is passed, throw up all they have 
learned in disgust, having gained nothing 
really by their anxious labours, except perhaps 
the habit of application. 

Yet such is the better specimen of the fruit 
of that ambitious system which has of late years 
been making way among us: for its result on 
ordinary minds, and on the common run of 
students, is less satisfactory still; they leave 
their place of education simply dissipated and 
relaxed by the multiplicity of subjects, which 
they have never really mastered, and so shallow 
as not even to know their shallowness. How 
much better, I say, is it for the active and 
thoughtful intellect, where such is to be found, 
to eschew the College and the University alto- 
gether, than to submit to a drudgery so ignoble, 
a mockery so contumelious ! How much more 
profitable for the independent mind, after the 
mere rudiments of education, to range through 
a library at random, taking down books as they 
meet him, and pursuing the trains of thought 
which his mother wit suggests ! How much 
healthier to wander into the fields, and there 
with the exiled Prince to find "tongues in the 
trees, books in the running brooks!" How 
much more genuine an education is that of the 
poor boy in the Poem — a Poem, whether in 
conception or in execution, one of the most 
touching in our language — who, not in the 



wide world, but ranging day by day around his 
widowed mother's home, "a dexterous gleaner" 
in a narrow field, and with only such slender 
outfit 

" as the village school and books a few 
Supplied," 

contrived from the beach, and the quay, and 
the fisher's boat, and the inn's fireside, and the 
tradesman's shop, and the shepherd's walk, and 
the smuggler's hut, and the mossy moor, and 
the screaming gulls, and the restless waves, 
to fashion for himself a philosophy and a 
poetry of his own ! 

But in a large subject, I am exceeding my 
necessary limits. Gentlemen, I must conclude 
abruptly; and postpone any summing up of 
my argument, should that be necessary, to 
another day. 

GEORGE BORROW (1803-1881) 

LAVENGRO 

CHAPTER LXX 

I passed the greater part of the day in en- 
deavouring to teach myself the mysteries of my 
new profession. I cannot say that I was very 
successful, but the time passed agreeably, 
and was therefore not ill spent. Towards 
evening I flung my work aside, took some 
refreshment, and afterwards a walk. 

This time I turned up the small footpath, 
of which I have already spoken. It led in 
a zigzag manner through thickets of hazel, 
elder, and sweet brier; after following its 
windings for somewhat better than a furlong, 
I heard a gentle sound of water, and presently 
came to a small rill, which ran directly across 
the path. I was rejoiced at the sight, for I 
had already experienced the want of water, 
which I yet knew must be nigh at hand, as 
I was in a place to all appearance occasionally 
frequented by wandering people, who I was 
aware never take up their quarters in places 
where water is difficult to be obtained. Forth- 
with I stretched myself on the ground, and took 
a long and delicious draught of the crystal 
stream, and then, seating myself in a bush, I 
continued for some time gazing on the water as 
it purled tinkling away in its channel through 
an opening in the hazels, and should have 
probably continued much longer had not the 
thought that I had left my property unprotected 
compelled me to rise and return to my encamp- 
ment. 



4i8 



GEORGE BORROW 



Night came on, and a beautiful night it was; 
up rose the moon, and innumerable stars decked 
the firmament of heaven. I sat on the shaft, 
my eyes turned upwards. I had found it: 
there it was twinkling millions of miles above 
me, mightiest star of the system to which we 
belong: of all stars, the one which has the 
most interest for me — the star Jupiter. 

Why have I always taken an interest in thee, 

Jupiter? I know nothing about thee, save 
what every child knows, that thou art a big 
star, whose only light is derived from moons. 
And is not that knowledge enough to make 
me feel an interest in thee? Ay, truly, I never 
look at thee without wondering what is going 
on in thee; what is life in Jupiter? That there 
is life in Jupiter who can doubt? There is 
life in our own little star, therefore there must 
be life in Jupiter, which is not a little star. 
But how different must life be in Jupiter from 
what it is in our own little star! Life here is 
life beneath the dear sun — life in Jupiter is 
life beneath moons — four moons — no single 
moon is able to illumine that vast bulk. All 
know what life is in our own little star; it is 
anything but a routine of happiness here, where 
the dear sun rises to us every day: then how 
sad and moping must life be in mighty Jupiter, 
on which no sun ever shines, and which is 
never lighted save by pale moonbeams! The 
thought that there is more sadness and melan- 
choly in Jupiter than in this world of ours, 
where, alas ! there is but too much, has always 
made me take a melancholy interest in that 
huge distant star. 

Two or three days passed by in much the 
same manner as the first. During the morning 

1 worked upon my kettles, and employed the re- 
maining part of the day as I best could. The 
whole of this time I only saw two individuals, 
rustics, who passed by my encampment with- 
out vouchsafing me a glance; they probably 
considered themselves my superiors, as perhaps 
they were. 

One very brilliant morning, as I sat at work 
in very good spirits, for by this time I had 
actually mended in a very creditable way, as I 
imagined, two kettles and a frying pan, I heard 
a voice which seemed to proceed from the path 
leading to the rivulet; at first it sounded from 
a considerable distance, but drew nearer by 
degrees. I soon remarked that the tones were 
exceedingly sharp and shrill, with yet some- 
thing of childhood in them. Once or twice 
I distinguished certain words in the song which 
the voice was singing; the words were — but 



no, I thought again I was probably mistaken — 
and then the voice ceased for a time; presently 
I heard it again, close to the entrance of the 
footpath ; in another moment I heard it in the 
lane or glade in which stood my tent, where it 
abruptly Stopped, but not before I had heard the 
very words which I at first thought I had distin- 
guished. 

I turned my head ; at the entrance of the foot- 
path, which might be about thirty yards from 
the place where I was sitting, I perceived the 
figure of a young girl ; her face was turned tow- 
ards me, and she appeared to be scanning me 
and my encampment; after a little time she 
looked in the other direction, only for a moment, 
however; probably observing nothing in that 
quarter, she again looked towards me, and 
almost immediately stepped forward; and, 
as she advanced, sang the song which I had 
heard in the wood, the first words of which 
were those which I have already alluded to. 

"The Rommany chi 
And the Rommany chal, 
Shall jaw tasaulor 
To drab the bawlor, 
And dook the gry 
Of the farming rye." * 

A very pretty song, thought I, falling again 
hard to work upon my kettle; a very pretty 
song, which bodes the farmers much good. 
Let them look to their cattle. 

"All alone here, brother?" said a voice close 
by me, in sharp but not disagreeable tones. 

I made no answer, but continued my work, 
click, click, with the gravity which became 
one of my profession. I allowed at least half 
a minute to elapse before I even lifted up my 
eyes. 

A girl of about thirteen was standing before 
me; her features were very pretty, but with 
a peculiar expression ; her complexion was a 
clear olive, and her jet black hair hung back 
upon her shoulders. She was rather scantily 
dressed, and her arms and feet were bare; 
round her neck, however, was a handsome string 
of corals, with ornaments of gold; in her hand 
she held a bulrush. 

"All alone here, brother?" said the girl, 
as I looked up; "all alone here, in the lane; 
where are your wife and children ?" 

"Why do you call me brother?" said I; "I 
am no brother of yours. Do you take me for 

1 For the translation, sec p. 423 below. 



LAVKNGRO 



419 



one of your people? I am no gipsy; not I, 
indeed !" 

" Don't be afraid, brother, you are no Roman 
— Roman indeed, you are not handsome 
enough to be a Roman; not black enough, 
tinker though you be. If I ealled you brother, 
il was because I didn't know whal else to call 
you. Marry, come up, brother, 1 should be 
very sorry to have you for a brother." 

"Then you don't like me?" 

"Neither like you, nor dislike you, brother; 
what will you have for that kekaubi?" 

"What's the use of talking to me in that 
un Christian way; what do you mean, young 
gentlewoman ?" 

"Lord, brother, what a fool you are; every 
tinker knows what a kekaubi is. I was asking 
you whal you would have for that kettle." 

"Three and sixpence, young gentlewoman; 
isn't it well mended?" 

"Well mended! I could have done it better 
myself; thrce-and sixpence! it's only fit to be 
played at football with." 

"I will take no less for it, young gentle- 
woman; it has caused me a world of trouble." 

" I never saw a worse mended kettle. I say, 
brother, your hair is white." 

""lis nature; your hair is black; nature, 
nothing but nature." 

"I am young, brother; my hair is black — 
that's nature: you are young, brother; your 
hair is white — that's not nature." 

"I can't help it if it be not, but it is nature 
after all; did you never see gray hair on the 
young?" 

"Never! I have heard it is true of a gray 
lad, and a bad one he was. Oh, so bad." 

"Sit down on the grass, and tell me all about 
it, sister; do, to oblige me, pretty sister." 

"Hey, brother, you don't speak as you did 
— you don't speak like a gorgio, you speak like- 
one of us, you call me sister." 

"As you (all me brother; I am not an uncivil 
person after all, sister." 

"I say, brother, tell me one thing, and look 
me in the face — there — do you speak 
Rommany?" 

"Rommany! Rommany! what is Rom- 
many?" 

"What is Rommany? our language, to be 
sure; tell me, brother, only one thing, you don't 
speak Rommany?" 

" Ybu say it." 

"I don't say it, I wish to know. Do you 
speak Rommany?" 

"Do you mean thieves' slang — cant? no, 



I don't speak cant, I don't like it, I only know 
a few words; they call a sixpence a tanner, 
don't they?" 

"1 don't know," said the girl, sitting down 
on the ground, "I was almost thinking - well, 
never mind, you don't know Rommany. I. 
say, brother, 1 think 1 should like to have the 
kekaubi." 

"I thought you said il was badly mended?" 

"Yes, yes, brother, but — " 

" I thought you said it was only lit to be played 
at football with?" 

"Yes, yes, brother, but — " 

"What will you give for it?" 

"Brother, I am the poor person's child, I 
will give you sixpence for (he kekaubi." 

" Poor person's child ; how came you by that 
necklace?" 

"Be civil, brother; am I to have the ke- 
kaubi?" 

"Not for sixpence; isn't the kettle nicely 
mended?" 

"I never saw a nicer mended kettle, brother; 
am I to have the kekaubi, brother?" 

"You like me then?" 

"I don't dislike you — I dislike no one; 
there's only one, and him I don't dislike, him 
1 hate." 

"Who is he?" 

"I scarcely know, I never saw him, but 'tis 
no affair of yours, you don't speak Rommany; 
you will let me have the kekaubi, pretty 
brother?" 

"You may have it, but not for sixpence, I'll 
give it to you." 

"Parraco tute, that is, I thank you, brother; 
the rikkeni kekaubi is now mine. ( ), rare! 
I thank you kindly, brother." 

Starting up, she Hung the bulrush aside which 
she had hitherto held in her hand, and seizing 
the keltic, she looked at it for a moment, and 
then began a kind of dance, flourishing the 
kettle over her head the while, and singing 

"The Rommany c hi 
An'1 the Rommany chal, 
Shall jaw tasaulor 
To drab tin- bawlor, 

And (look the gry 

Of the farming rye." 

"Good by, brother, I must be going." 

"Good by, sister; why do you sing that 
wicked song?" 

"Wicked song, hey, brother! you don't un- 
derstand the song !" 

"Ha, ha! gipsy daughter," said I, starting 



420 



GEORGE BORROW 



up and clapping my hands, " l donM understand 
Rommany, donM [? You shall see; here's 
the answer to your gillie 

" ' The Rommanj < iii 
And the Rommany cha] 
Love l .unpen 
Ami dukkei ipen, 
Aiul hokkeripen, 
An. i every pen 
Bui I .n hipen 
Ami tatchipen. 1 " 

The girl, who had given a slight start when 1 
began, remained for some time after 1 had con 
eluded the song, standing motionless as a statue, 
with tlu' kettle in her hand. At length she 

rami- towards me, and Stared me full in the 

face. "Gray, tall, and talks Rommany," 
>aid slu- to herself. En her countenance there 
was an expression which 1 had not seen before 
an expression which struck me as being 
composed of fear, curiosity, and the deepest 
hate. It was momentary, however, and was 
succeeded by one smiling, frank, and open. 
"Ha, ha, brother," said she, "well, 1 like you 
all tlu- better for talking Rommany; it is a 

sweet language, isn't it ? especially as you sing 
it. How did you pick it up? Hut you picked 
it up upon the roads, no doubt? Ha, it was 
funny in you to pretend not to know it, and you 
so Hush with it all the time; it was not kind 
in you, however, to frighten the poor person's 

child so by screaming out, hut it was kind in 

you to give the rikkeni kckauhi to tlu- child of 
the poor person. She will he grateful to you; 
she will bring you her little dog to show you, 
her pretty juggal; the poor person's child will 
Come and see von again; you are not going 
away to day, 1 hope, or to morrow, pretty 
brother, gray haired brother you are not 
going away to morrow, l hope.'" 

'"Nor the next day," said 1, "only to lake 
a Stroll to see if 1 can sell a kittle; good by, 
little sister, Rommany sister, dingy sister." 

"Good by, tall brother," said the girl, as 
she departed, singing 

'■ riu- Rommany chi," etc. 

"There's something about that girl that 1 
don't understand," said 1 to myself; "some 
thing mysterious. However, it is nothing to 
me, she knows not who 1 am, ami if she did, 
what then?" 

l.ate that evening as 1 sat on the shaft of my 

cart in deep meditation, with my arms folded, 

1 thought 1 heard a rustling in the hushes over 
against me. 1 turned my eyes in that direction, 



hut saw nothing. "Some bird," said 1; "an 
owl, perhaps;" and once more 1 fell into medi- 
tation; my mind wandered from one thing to 
another musing now on the structure of the 
Roman tongue now on the rise and fall of 
the Persian power and now on the powers 
vested in recorders at quarter sessions. I was 
thinking what a line thing it must he to he 
a recorder of the peace, when lifting up my 
eyes, 1 saw right opposite, not a culprit at the 
bar, but, staring at me through a gap in the 
hush, a face wild and strange, half covered with 
gray hair; 1 only saw it a moment, the next it 
had disappeared. 

CHAPTER I XXI 

The next day at an early hour, 1 harnessed 
my little pony, ami, putting my things in my 
cart, I went on my projected stroll. Crossing 
the moor, 1 arrived in about an hour at a small 
village, from which, after a short Stay, I pro- 
ceeded to another, and from thence to a third. 
1 found that the name of Slingshv was well 
known in these parts. 

"If vim are a friend of Slingshv you must 
he an honest lad," said an ancient crone; "you 
shall never want for work whilst 1 can give 
it VOU, Here, take my kettle, the bottom came 
out this morning, and lend me that of yours 
till you bring it hack. I'm not afraid to trust 
you not 1. Don't hurry \ outsell", young 
man, if you don't come back for a fortnight 1 
shan't have the worse opinion of you." 

1 returned to mv quarters at evening, tired 
but rejoiced at heart; 1 had work before me for 

several days, having collected various kekaubies 
which required mending, in place of those which 

1 left behind those which 1 had been em- 
ployed upon during the last few days. 1 found 
all quiet in the lane or glade, and, unharnessing 
my little horse, 1 once more pitched my tent 
in the old spot beneath the ash, lighted my 
lire, ate mv frugal meal, and then, after looking 
for some time at the heavenly bodies, and more 
particularly at the star Jupiter, 1 entered my 
tent, lay down upon my pallet, and went to 
sleep. 

Nothing occurred OH the following day 

which requires any particular notice, nor 

indeed on the one succeeding that. It was 
about noon on the third day that 1 sat beneath 
the shade of the ash tree; 1 was not at work, 
for the weather was particularly hot, and 1 fell 
but little inclination to make any exertion. 
Leaning my hack against the tree, 1 was not 



LAVKNCKO 



421 



long in falling into a slumber; I particularly 
remember thai slumber of mine beneath the 
ash tree, for ii was about the sweetest that l 
evei enjoyed; Imw long l continued in ii l 
do nol know; 1 could almost have wished that 
ii had lasted to the present time. All of a 
Budden ii appeared to me that a voice < ried in 
my ear, "Dangei ' danger I danger 1" Nothing 
seemingly could be more distinct than the 
words which I heard; then an uneasy sensation 
came over me, which I strove to get rid <>f, and 
at last succeeded, for l awoke. The gipsy 
girl was standing just opposite to me, with her 
eyes fixed upon my countenance; a singular 
kind of little dog stood beside her. 

"Ha I " said I, " was ii you ilia i cried danger? 
What danger is there ' " 

"Danger, brother, there is no danger; whal 
danger should there be? I called to my little 

dog, but that was in the wood; my little dog's 

name is noi danger, but stranger; whal danger 
should there !><•, brothei '" 

"Whal, indeed, e\ee|>l in sleeping bcncalh 

a tree; what is that you have got in your 

hand?" 

"Something for you," said the girl, sitting 

down and proceeding to Untie a while napkin; 

";i pretty manricli, so sweet, so nice; when I 
ueiii home to my people 1 told my grandbebee 
how kind you had been to the poor person's 

child, and when my grandbebee saw I he ke 
kaubi, she said, 'llir mi devlis, il won'l do for 

the poor people to be ungrateful; by my God, 
I will bake a cake for the young harko mes 

cro.'" 
" Bui there are iwo cakes." 

"Yes, brother, two cakes, both for you; my 
grandbebee meant them both for you but 
lisi, brother, I will have one of (hem for bring- 
ing them. I know you will give me one, pretty 
brother, gray haired brother which shall [ 
have, brother?" 

In the napkin were Iwo round cakes, seem- 
ingly made of rich and cosily compounds, and 
precisely similar in form, each weighing alioiil 
hall a pound. 

"Which shall I have, brother?" said the 
gipsy girl. 

" Whichever you please." 

"No, brother, no, the cakes are yours, not 
mine, il is for you to say." 

"Well, then, give me the one nearest you, 

and lake Ihe Other." 

" Yes, brother, yes," said the girl ; and taking 

ihe cakes, she Hung them into the air (wo or 
three times, catching them as they fell, and 



singing the while. "Pretty brother, gray 
haired brother here, brother," said she, 

"here is your cake, this Other is mine." 

"Are you sure," said I, taking the cake, 
" that this is the one I chose ?" 

"<,)iiite ..me, brothei ; but if you like you 
can have mine; there's no difference, however 

shall I eat ?" 

" Yes, sister, eat." 

"See, brother, 1 do; now, brother, eat, pretty 
brother, gray haired brother." 

" 1 am noi hungry." 

"Noi hungryl well, what then what has 
being hungry i<> do with the mailer.'' It is 
my grandbebee's cake which was sent because 

you were kind to- Ihe poor person's child; eal, 

brother, eat, .'111(1 we shall be like the children 

in the wood that Ihe gorgios speak of." 

"The children in the wood had nothing t<> 
eat." 

"Yes, they had hips and haws; we have 

heller. Eat, brother. 

"See, sister, 1 do," and I ale a piece of Ihe 
cake. 

"Well, brother, how do you like il?" said 
Ihe (Mil, looking fixedly al me. 

"Il is very rich and sweet, and yel (here is 

something strange about ii ; I don'1 think I 

shall eal any more." 

"Fie, brother, lie, to find fault with the poor 

person's cake; see, I have nearly ealen mine." 

"That's a pretty little dog." 
"Is ii not, brother? that's my juggal, my 
little sister, as I call her." 

"Come here, juggal," said I lo Ihe animal. 
"Whal do you waul with my juggal?" said 

the girl. 

"Only to give her a piece of cake," said I, 
offei ing the clog a piece which I had jusl broken 
off. 

"What do you mean ?" said the girl, snali h 

ing the dog away; "my grandbebee's cake is 

nol for dogS." 

"Why, I jusl now saw you give the animal 
a piece of yours." 

"You lie, brother, you saw no such thing; 

bill I see how il is, you wish lo affront the poor 
person's child. I shall go to my house." 

"Keep still, and don't be angry; see, I have 

eaten the piece which I offered the dog. I 
meant no Offeni e It is a sweet cake after all." 
"Isn't it, brother? I am glad you like it. 
offence! brother, no offence at all! I am so 
glad you like my grandbebee's cake, but she 
will be wanting me al home. Eal one piece 
more of grandbebee's cake and I will go." 



i • • GEORGE link row 

"l .mi nol hungry, I will put the real b) " vals my mouth waa dry and burning, and I 

"One piece nunc before I go, handsome fell a frantic desire to drink, but nowaterwaa 

brother, gray haired brothei " at hand, and to reach the spring once mora 

"l will not eat an) more, I have already was impossible: the qualms continued, deadly 

eaten more than 1 wished to oblige you; it pains snot through my whole frame; 1 could 

you must go, good da] t<> you " beai mj agonies no longer, ami l fell Into a 

The girl rose upon hei feet, looked hard at trance or swoon, flow long I continued therein 

me, then ai the remainder <>i the cake which l know not; on recovering, however, l felt 

1 held in my hand, ami then ai me again, ami somewhat better, and attempted t<> lift my head 

then stood i"i a moment oi two, as ii in « l*c | > oil my couch; the next moment, however, 

thought; presently an an of satisfaction came the qualms and pains returned, if possible, with 

ovei he 1 countenance, she smiled and said, greater violence than before. I am dying, 

"Well, brother, will, do as you please, 1 merely thought 1, like a dor, without any help; ami 

wished you to eat bei ause you have been so kind then methought I heard a sound at a distan* e 

io the pool person's child, She loves you so, like people singing, ami dun once mora I 

that she could have wished to have seen you eat relapsed into mj swoon, 

it all; good by, brother, I dare saj when lam [ revived just as a heavy blow sounded, upon 

gone \"n will eat some more of il, and il yon the canvas ol llic Irnl. I Started, but m\ ron 

don't 1 <\-^>' saj you have cairn enough to dition did not permit me to rise; again the 

to show youi love l"i US, Aflci all it was same kind ol Mow sounded upon the ranvas; 

a poor prison's cake, a Konuiiany iiianiuli, I thought lor a moment ol crying OUt .^nA re- 

and all von gorgios an- somewhat gorgioUS, questing assistance, hut an inexplicable somo- 

Farawell, brother, pretty brother, gray haired thing chained my tongue, and now I heard s 

brother, Come, jugga) whisper on the outside >>f the tent. "He does 

1 remained undei the ash tree seated on the nol move, bebee," said a voice which 1 knew. 

grass for a minute or two, and endeavoured i<> "I should not wonder it it has done for him 

resume the occupation in which 1 had been en already; however, strike again with your ran;" 

gaged before I fell asleep, but 1 felt no ineliua- and then there was another Mow, alter which 

lion loi laboUl I then thought 1 would sleep anothei voice cried aloml in a Strange tone, 

again, ami once more re< lined against the tree, " is the gentleman <>r the house asleep, or is ho 

and slumbered fo] some little lime, hut my taking his dinner;'" 1 lemained quite silent 

sleep was moie agitated than helore. Some and motionless, and in another moment the 

thing appeared i<> beai heavy on my breast, 1 voice continued, "What, no answer? what can 

Struggled in my sleep, fell on the grass, and the gentleman ol (he house In- ahoul that he 

awoke; my temples were throhhing, there makes no answei ' perhaps I he gent leman ol die 

was a burning In my eyes, and my mouth felt house may be darning his stockings?" There 

parched; the oppression about the chest which upon a lace peered into die dooi of the tent, 

I had felt in my sleep still continued. "1 at the farther extremity of which I wasstretched. 

must shake oil these feelings," said I, "and get It was thai ol' a woman, Iml owing to the pos 

Upon my legs." I walked rapidly up and down lure in w huh she stood, with her luck to the 

upon the green sward; at length, feeling my light, and partly owing to a large straw bonnet, 

thirst Increase, 1 directed my steps down the [ could distinguish but very little of the features 

narrow path to the spring which ran amidst of her countenance. 1 had, however, recog 

the hushes; arriving there, I knell down and nised her voire ; il was that ol' m\ old acquaint 

<li. ink ol the water, hut on lifting up mv head anre, Mrs. Ilrinr " I Io, ho, sir!" said she, 

I fell thirstier than hefore; again I drank, hut "here you are. Come here, Leonora," said 

with the like results; I was ahout to drink for she to the gipsy s-ii I, w ho pressed in at the Other 

the third time, when I fell a dreadful cjiialm side of the door; "here IS the gentleman, nol 

which instantly robbed me of nearly all mv asleep, hut only stretched out after dinner. 

Strength. What can he the mallei with me, Sit down on your ham, child, at the door, 1 

thought 1; hut 1 suppose 1 have made myself shall Ao the same. Them vou have seen 

ill by drinking cold water. I got up and made me before, sir, have von not.'" 

the best of ms way hack Io m\ lenl; hefore "The gentleman makes no answer, hehee; 

I leached it the qualm hail sci.cd me again, perhaps he does not know \ou 

and I was deadly sick I llung mvself on my "I have known him of old, Leonora," said 

pallet, qualm succeeded qualm, hut in the inter Mrs. Heme; "and, to tell you the truth, though 



LAVENGRO 



423 



I spoke to liiin jusl now, I expected DO an- 
swer." 

" It's a w;iy be lias, ljei.ee, 1 suppose?" 

"Yes, child, it's :i way lie has." 

"Take off your bonnet, bebee, perhaps he 

Cannot see your lace." 

"I do not think that will he of much use, 

child; however, I will take off my bonnet — 

there and shake out my hair there 
you have seen this hair before, sir, and this 

Eace " 

" No answer, bebee." 

"Though the one was not quite so gray, nor 
the other so wrinkled." 

"How came they so, bebee?" 
"All along of tin's gorgio, child." 

"The gentleman in the house, you mean, 

bebee." 

"Yes, child, the gentleman in the house. 

God grant that I may preserve my temper. 

Do you know, sir, my name? My name is 
Heme, which signifies a hairy individual, 
though neither gray haired nor wrinkled. It 
is not the nature of the Hemes to be gray or 
wrinkled, even when they are old, and 1 am 
not old." 

"How old are you, bebee?" 

"Sixty live years, child an inconsiderable 
number. My mother was a hundred and one 
— a considerable age when she died, yet 
she had not one gray hair, and not more than 
six wrinkles an inconsiderable number." 
"She had no griefs, bebee?" 
" Plenty, child, but no! like mine." 

"Not quite so hard to bear, bebee?" 
"No, child, my head wanders when I think 
of them. After the death of my husband, who 
came to his end mil imeously, I went to live 
with a daughter of mine, married out among 
certain Romans who walk about the eastern 

Counties, and with whom for some lime I found 
a home and pleasant society, for they lived right 

Romanly, which gave my heart considerable 

satisfaction, who am a Roman born, and hope 
to die so. When I say right Romanly, I mean 
that they kept to themselves, and were not 
much given to blabbing about their private 
matters in promise nous company. Well, things 
went on in this way for some time, when 
one day my son-in law brings home a young 
gorgio of singular and outrageous ugliness, 
and, without much preamble, says to me and 
to mine, 'This is my pal, a'n't he a beauty? 
fall down and worship him.' ' Hold,' said I, 
'J for one will never consent to such foolish 
ness.'" 



"Thai was right, bebee, I think I should 

have done the same." 

" I think you would, < hild ; but whal was the 
profit of it? The whole party makes an al- 
mighty of this gorgio, lets him into I heir ways, 
says prayers of his making, till tilings come to 
such a pass that my own daughter say:, to me, 
'I shall buy myself a veil and fan, and treat 
myself to a play and sacrament.' 'Don't,' 
says I; says she, 'i should like for once in my 
life to be COUrtesied to as a Christian genlle- 

'V'llllilll.'" 

" Very foolish of her, bebee." 

"Wasn't it, (hild? Where was [? Al the 
fan and sacrament; with a heavy heart I pul 
seven score miles between us, came back to the 
hairy ones, and found them over-given to gor- 
gious companions; said I, 'foolish maimers is 

catching, all this comes <<i thai there gorgio.' 
Answers the 'hild Leonora, 'Take comfort, 

bebee, I hale the gorgios a g mill h as you do.'" 
"And I say so again, bebee, as much or 
more." 

"Time flows on, 1 engage in many matters, 
in most miscarry. Am sent to prison; says 
J lo myself, 1 am become foolish. Am turned 
oul of prison, and go bail: to the hairy ones, 
who receive me nol over courteously; says I, 
for their UnkindneSS, and my own foolishness, 
all the thanks lo that gorgio. Answers to me 
the child, 'I wish J could set my eyes upon 
him, bebee.'" 

"I did so, bebee; go on." 

'"How shall I know him, bebee?' says the 
child. 'Young and gray, tall, and speaks 
Romanly.' Runs to me the child, and says, 
'I've found him, bebee.' 'Where, child?' says 
I. 'Come with me, bebee,' says the child. 
'That's he,' says I, as I looked at my gentleman 
through the hedge." 

"Ha, ha! bebee, and here he lies, poisoned 
like a hog." 

"You have taken drows, sir," said Mrs. 
Heme; "do you hear, sir? drows; tip him a 
slave, ( hild, of the song of poison." 

And thereupon the girl flapped her hands, 
and sang — 

"Tin Rommany 1 burl 
And the Rommany girl, 

To morrow shall hie 

To poi .on tin- sty, 

Anil bewitl li on the in' i'l 

'l hi farm 1 ' steed." 

"Ho you hear that, sir?" said Mrs. Heme; 
"the child has tipped you a stave of the song of 



424 



GEORGE BORROW 



poison: that is, she has sung it Christianly, 
though perhaps you would like to hear it 
Romanly ; you were always fond of what was 
Roman. Tip it him Romanly, child." 

"He has heard it Romanly already, bebee; 
'twas by that I found him out, as I told you." 

"Halloo, sir, are you sleeping? you have 
taken drows ; the gentleman makes no answer. 
God give me patience !" 

"And what if he doesn't, bebee; isn't he 
poisoned like a hog? Gentleman! indeed, 
why call him gentleman ? if he ever was one 
he's broke, and is now a tinker, and a worker 
of blue metal." 

"That's his way, child, to-day a tinker, 
to-morrow something else; and as for being 
drabbed, I don't know what to say about it." 

"Not drabbed! what do you mean, bebee? 
but look there, bebee; ha, ha, look at the 
gentleman's motions." 

"He is sick, child, sure enough. Ho, ho! 
sir, you have taken drows; what, another 
throe ! writhe, sir, writhe, the hog died by the 
drow of gipsies ; I saw him stretched at evening. 
That's yourself, sir. There is no hope, sir, 
no help, you have taken drows ; shall I tell you 
your fortune, sir, your dukkerin? God bless 
you, pretty gentleman, much trouble will you 
have to suffer, and much water to cross; but 
never mind, pretty gentleman, you shall be 
fortunate at the end, and those who hate shall 
take off their hats to you." 

" Hey, bebee ! " cried the girl ; "what is this ? 
what do you mean? you have blessed the 
gorgio!" 

"Blessed him! no, sure; what did I say? 
Oh, I remember, I'm mad; well, I can't help 
it, I said what the dukkerin dook told me; 
woe's me, he'll get up yet." 

"Nonsense, bebee! Look at his motions, 
he's drabbed, spite of dukkerin." 

"Don't say so, child; he's sick, 'tis true, but 
don't laugh at dukkerin, only folks do that that 
know no better. I, for one, will never laugh 
at the dukkerin dook. Sick again ; I wish he 
was gone." 

"He'll soon be gone, bebee; let's leave him. 
He's as good as gone; look there, he's dead." 

"No, he's not, he'll get up — I feel it; can't 
we hasten him?" 

" Hasten him ! yes, to be sure ; set the dog 
upon him. Here, juggal, look in there, my 
dog." 

The dog made its appearance at the door of 
the tent, and began to bark and tear up the 
ground. 



"At him, juggal, at him; he wished to 
poison, to drab you. Halloo!" 

The clog barked violently, and seemed about 
to spring at my face, but retreated. 

"The dog won't fly at him, child; he flashed 
at the dog with his eye, and scared him. He'll 
get up." 

"Nonsense, bebee! you make me angry; 
how should he get up?" 

"The dook tells me so, and, what's more, 
I had a dream. I thought I was at York, 
standing amidst a crowd to see a man hung, 
and the crowd shouted 'There he comes!' 
and I looked, and, lo ! it was the tinker; before 
I could cry with joy I was whisked away, and I 
found myself in Ely's big church, which was 
chock full of people to hear the dean preach, 
and all eyes were turned to the big pulpit; 
and presently I heard them say, ' There 
he mounts ! ' and I looked up to the big 
pulpit, and lo ! the tinker was in the pulpit, 
and he raised his arm and began to preach. 
Anon, I found myself at York again, just as 
the drop fell, and I looked up, and I saw, 
not the tinker, but my own self hanging in 
the air." 

"You are going mad, bebee; if you want to 
hasten him, take your stick and poke him in 
the eye." 

"That will be of no use, child, the dukkerin 
tells me so ; but I will try what I can do. 
Halloo, tinker! you must introduce yourself 
into a quiet family, and raise confusion — 
must you? You must steal its language, and, 
what was never done before, write- it down 
Christianly — must you? Take that — and 
that;" and she stabbed violently with her stick 
towards the end of the tent. 

"That's right, bebee, you struck his face; 
now once more, and let it be in the eye. Stay, 
what's that? get up, bebee." 

"What's the matter, child?" 

"Some one is coming, come away." 

"Let me make sure of him, child; he'll 
be up yet." And thereupon Mrs. Heme, 
rising, leaned forward into the tent, and sup- 
porting herself against the pole, took aim in 
the direction of the farther end. "I will 
thrust out his eye," said she ; and, lunging with 
her stick, she would probably have accom- 
plished her purpose had not at that moment 
the pole of the tent given way, whereupon she 
fell to the ground, the canvas falling upon her 
and her intended victim. 

"Here's a pretty affair, bebee," screamed the 
girl. 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



425 



"He'll get up yet," said Mrs. Heme, from 
beneath the canvas. 

"Get up! — get up yourself; where are you? 
where is your — Here, there, bebee, here's the 
door; there, make haste, they are coming." 

"He'll get up yet," said Mrs. Heme, recover- 
ing her breath, "the dook tells me so." 

' ' Never mind him or the dook ; he is drabbed ; 
come away, or we shall be grabbed — both of 
us." 

"One more blow, I know where his head 
lies." 

"You are mad, bebee; leave the fellow — 
gorgio avella." 

And thereupon the females hurried away. 

A vehicle of some kind was evidently drawing 
nigh; in a little time it came alongside of the 
place where lay the fallen tent, and stopped 
suddenly. There was a silence for a moment, 
and then a parley ensued between two voices, 
one of which was that of a woman. It was not 
in English, but in a deep guttural tongue. 

"Peth yw hono sydd yn gorwedd yna ar y 
ddaear?" said a masculine voice. 

"Yn wirionedd — I do not know what it can 
be," said the female voice, in the same tongue. 

"Here is a cart, and there are tools; but what 
is that on the ground?" 

"Something moves beneath it; and what 
was that — a groan?" 

"Shall I get down?" 

"Of course, Peter, some one may want your 
help." 

"Then I will get down, though I do not like 
this place, it is frequented by Egyptians, and I 
do not like their yellow faces, nor their clib- 
berty clabber, as Master Ellis Wyn says. Now 
I am down. It is a tent, Winifred, and see, 
here is a boy beneath it. Merciful father! 
what a face!" 

A middle-aged man, with a strongly marked 
and serious countenance, dressed in sober- 
coloured habiliments, had lifted up the stifling 
folds of the tent and was bending over me. 
"Can you speak, my lad?" said he in English, 
"what is the matter with you? if you could 
but tell me, I could perhaps help you — " 
"What is it that you say? I can't hear you. 
I will kneel down;" and he flung himself on 
the ground, and placed his ear close to my 
mouth. "Now speak if you can. Hey! what! 
no, sure, God forbid!" then starting up, he 
cried to a female who sat in the cart, anxiously 
looking on — "Gwenwyn! gwenwyn! yw 
y gwas wedi ei gwenwynaw. The oil ! Wini- 
fred, the oil!" 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACK- 
ERAY (1811-1863) 

THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
STERNE 

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second 
son of a numerous race, descendants of Richard 
Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of 
Charles II. ; and children of Simon Sterne 
and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elving- 
ton, near York. Roger was an ensign in 
Colonel Hans Hamilton's regiment, and en- 
gaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. 
He married the daughter of a noted sutler. 
"N. B., he was in debt to him," his son writes, 
pursuing the paternal biography — and marched 
through the world with his companion; she 
following the regiment and bringing many 
children to poor Roger Sterne. The Captain 
was an irascible but kind and simple little man, 
Sterne says, and he informs us that his sire was 
run through the body at Gibraltar, by a brother 
officer, in a duel which arose out of a dispute 
about a goose. Roger never entirely recovered 
from the effects of this rencontre, but died 
presently at Jamaica, whither he had followed 
the drum. 

Laurence, his second child, was born at 
Clonmel, in Ireland, in 1713, and travelled 
for the first ten years of his life, on his father's 
march, from barrack to transport, from Ire- 
land to England. 

One relative of his mother's took her and her 
family under shelter for ten months at Mullin- 
gar; another collateral descendant of the 
Archbishop's housed them for a year at his 
castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was 
put to school at Halifax in England, finally 
was adopted by his kinsman of Elvington, and 
parted company with his father, the Captain, 
who marched on his path of life till he met the 
fatal goose which closed his career. The most 
picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence 
Sterne's writings we owe to his recollections of 
the military life. Trim's montero cap, and 
Le Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle Toby's 
roquelaure are doubtless reminiscences of the 
boy, who had lived with the followers of William 
and Marlborough, and had beat time with his 
little feet to the fifes of Ramillies in Dublin 
barrack-yard, or played with the torn flags and 
halberds of Malplaquet on the parade-ground 
at Clonmel. 

Laurence remained at Halifax school till 



426 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



he was eighteen years old. His wit and clever- 
ness appear to have acquired the respect of 
his master here; for when the usher whipped 
Laurence for writing his name on the newly 
whitewashed schoolroom ceiling, the peda- 
gogue in chief rebuked the understrapper, and 
said that the name should never be effaced, for 
Sterne was a boy of genius, and would come to 
preferment. 

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent 
Sterne to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he 
remained some years, and, taking orders, 
got, through his uncle's interest, the living of 
Sutton and a prebendal stall at York. Through 
his wife's connections he got the living of Still- 
ington. He married her in 1741, having 
ardently courted the young lady for some years 
previously. It was not until the young lady 
fancied herself dying, that she made Sterne 
acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. 
One evening when he was sitting with her, with 
an almost broken heart to see her so ill (the 
Reverend Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal 
broken in the course of his life), she said — 
"My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I 
verily believe I have not long to live ; but I have 
left you every shilling of my fortune;" a gen- 
erosity which overpowered Sterne. She re- 
covered: and so they were married, and grew 
heartily tired of each other before many years 
were over. "Nescio quid est materia cum 
me," Sterne writes to one of his friends (in 
dog-Latin, and very sad dog-Latin too); "sed 
sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea uxore plus 
quam unquam:" which means, I am sorry to 
say, "I don't know what is the matter with 
me; but I am more tired and sick of my wife 
than ever." 

This to be sure was hve-and-twenty years 
after Laurey had been overcome by her gen- 
erosity, and she by Laurey's love. Then he 
wrote to her of the delights of marriage, saying, 
"We will be as merry and as innocent as our 
first parents in Paradise, before the arch-fiend 
entered that indescribable scene. The kindest 
affections will have room to expand in our 
retirement: let the human tempest and hur- 
ricane rage at a distance, the desolation is 
beyond the horizon of peace. My L. has 
seen a polyanthus blow in December? — Some 
friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting 
wind. No planetary influence shall reach us 
but that which presides and cherishes the 
sweetest flowers. The gloomy family of care 
and distrust shall be banished from our dwell- 
ing, guarded by thy kind and tutelar deity. 



We will sing our choral songs of gratitude 
and rejoice to the end of our pilgrimage. 
Adieu, my L. Return to one who languishes 
for thy society ! — As I take up my pen, my 
poor pulse quickens, my pale face glows, and 
tears are trickling down on my paper as I 
trace the word L." 

And it is about this woman, with whom he 
finds no fault but that she bores him, that our 
philanthropist writes, "Sum fatigatus et 
aegrotus" — Sum mortal iter in amore with 
somebody else ! That fine flower of love, that 
polyanthus over which Sterne snivelled so 
many tears, could not last for a quarter of a 
century ! 

Or rather it could not be expected that a 
gentleman with such a fountain at command 
should keep it to arroscr one homely old lady, 
when a score of younger and prettier people 
might be refreshed from the same gushing 
source. It was in December 1767, that the 
Reverend Laurence Sterne, the famous Shand- 
ean, the charming Yorick, the delight of the 
fashionable world, the delicious divine for whose 
sermons the whole polite world was subscribing, 
the occupier of Rabelais's easy-chair, only fresh 
stuffed and more elegant than when in posses- 
sion of the cynical old curate of Meudon, — 
the more than rival of the Dean of Saint 
Patrick's, wrote the above-quoted respectable 
letter to his friend in London: and it was in 
April of the same year that he was pouring out 
his fond heart to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife 
of "Daniel Draper, Esquire, Councillor of Bom- 
bay, and, in 1775, chief of the factory of Surat 
— a gentleman very much respected in that 
quarter of the globe." 

"I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne 
writes, "on my return from Lord Bathurst's, 
where I dined" — (the letter has this merit 
in it, that it contains a pleasant reminiscence of 
better men than Sterne, and introduces us to 
a portrait of a kind old gentleman) — "I got 
thy letter last night, Eliza, on my return from 
Lord Bathurst's; and where I was heard — as 
I talked of thee an hour without intermission — 
with so much pleasure and attention, that the 
good old Lord toasted your health three differ- 
ent times; and now he is in his 85th year, says 
he hopes to live long enough to be introduced as 
a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see 
her eclipse all other Nabobesses as much in 
wealth as she does already in exterior and, what 
is far better" (for Sterne is nothing without his 
morality), "in interior merit. This nobleman 
is an old friend of mine. You know he was 



THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



427 



always the protector of men of wit and genius, 
and has had those of the last century, Addison, 
Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, &c, always at his 
table. The manner in which his notice began 
of me was as singular as it was polite. He came 
up to me one day as I was at the Princess of 
Wales's Court, and said, T want to know you, 
Mr. Sterne, but it is fit you also should know 
who it is that wishes this pleasure. You have 
heard of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your 
Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken so 
much? I have lived my life with geniuses of 
that cast; but have survived them; and, 
despairing ever to find their equals, it is some 
years since I have shut up my books and closed 
my accounts; but you have kindled a desire 
in me of opening them once more before I die: 
which I now do : so go home and dine with me.' 
This nobleman, I say, is a prodigy, for he has all 
the wit and promptness of a man of thirty; 
a disposition to be pleased, and a power to 
please others, beyond whatever I knew; added 
to which a man of learning, courtesy, and 
feeling. 

"He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with un- 
common satisfaction — for there was only a 
third person, and of sensibility, with us: and 
a most sentimental afternoon, till nine o'clock 
have we passed ! But thou, Eliza, wert the 
star that conducted and enlivened the dis- 
course ! And when I talked not of thee, still 
didst thou fill my mind, and warm every thought 
I uttered, for I am not ashamed to acknowledge 
I greatly miss thee. Best of all good girls! 
the sufferings I have sustained all night in con- 
sequence of thine, Eliza, are beyond the power 
of words. . . . And so thou hast fixed thy 
Bramin's portrait over thy writing-desk, and 
wilt consult it in all doubts and difficulties? — 
Grateful and good girl ! Yorick smiles con- 
tentedly over all thou dost: his picture does not 
do justice to his own complacency. I am glad 
your shipmates are friendly beings" (Eliza was 
at Deal, going back to the Councillor at Bom- 
bay, and indeed it was high time she should be 
off). "You could least dispense with what is 
contrary to your own nature, which is soft and 
gentle, Eliza; it would civilise savages — 
though pity were it thou shouldst be tainted 
with the office. Write to me, my child, thy 
delicious letters. Let them speak the easy 
carelessness of a heart that opens itself anyhow, 
everyhow. Such, Eliza, I write to thee!" 
(The artless rogue, of course he did!) "And 
so I should ever love thee, most artlessly, most 
affectionately, if Providence permitted thy resi- 



dence in the same section of the globe: for 
I am all that honour and affection can make 
me 'Thy Bramin."' 

The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. 
Draper until the departure of the Earl of 
Chatham Indiaman from Deal, on the 3rd 
of April 1767. He is amiably anxious about 
the fresh paint for Eliza's cabin; he is uncom- 
monly solicitous about her companions on 
board : — 

"I fear the best of your shipmates are only 
genteel by comparison with the contrasted 
crew with which thou beholdest them. So 
was — you know who — from the same fallacy 
which was put upon your judgment when — 
but I will not mortify you !" 

"You know who" was, of course, Daniel 
Draper, Esquire, of Bombay — a gentleman 
very much respected in that quarter of the globe, 
and about whose probable health our worthy 
Bramin writes with delightful candour: 

"I honour you, Eliza, for keeping secret 
some things which, if explained, had been a 
panegyric on yourself. There is a dignity in 
venerable affliction which will not allow it to 
appeal to the world for pity or redress. Well 
have you supported that character, my amiable, 
my philosophic friend ! And, indeed, I begin 
to think you have as many virtues as my 
Uncle Toby's widow. Talking of widows — 
pray, Eliza, if ever you are such, do not think 
of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, 
because I design to marry you myself. My 
wife cannot live long, and I know not the 
woman I should like so well for her substitute 
as yourself. 'Tis true I am ninety-five in con- 
stitution, and you but twenty-five; but what 
I want in youth, I will make up in wit and 
good-humour. Not Swift so loved his Stella, 
Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Saccha- 
rissa. Tell me, in answer to this, that you ap- 
prove and honour the proposal." 

Approve and honour the proposal ! The 
coward was writing gay letters to his friends this 
while, with sneering allusions to this poor 
foolish Bromine. Her ship was not out of the 
Downs and the charming Sterne was at the 
"Mount Coffee-house," with a sheet of gilt- 
edged paper before him, offering that precious 

treasure his heart to Lady P , asking whether 

it gave her pleasure to see him unhappy? 
whether it added to her triumph that her eyes 
and lips had turned a man into a fool? — quot- 
ing the Lord's Prayer, with a horrible baseness 
of blasphemy, as a proof that he had desired 
not to be led into temptation, and swearing 



428 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



himself the most tender and sincere fool in the 
world. It was from his home at Coxwold, 
that he wrote the Latin Letter, which, I suppose, 
he was ashamed to put into English. I find 
in my copy of the Letters that there is a note of, 
I can't call it admiration, at Letter 112, which 
seems to announce that there was a No. 3 to 
whom the wretched worn-out old scamp was 
paying his addresses; and the year after, 
having come back to his lodgings in Bond Street, 
with his "Sentimental Journey" to launch upon 
the town, eager as ever for praise and pleasure 
— as vain, as wicked, as witty, as false as he 
had ever been, death at length seized the feeble 
wretch, and on the 18th of March 1768, that 
"bale of cadaverous goods," as he calls his 
body, was consigned to Pluto. In his last letter 
there is one sign of grace — the real affection 
with which he entreats a friend to be a guardian 
to his daughter Lydia. All his letters to her are 
artless, kind, affectionate, and not sentimental; 
as a hundred pages in his writings are beautiful, 
and full, not of surprising humour merely, but 
of genuine love and kindness. A perilous trade, 
indeed, is that of a man who has to bring his 
tears and laughter, his recollections, his per- 
sonal griefs and joys, his private thoughts and 
feelings to market, to write them on paper, and 
sell them for money. Does he exaggerate his 
grief, so as to get his reader's pity for a false 
sensibility? feign indignation, so as to establish 
a character for virtue? elaborate repartees, so 
that he may pass for a wit? steal from other 
authors, and put down the theft to the credit 
side of his own reputation for ingenuity and 
learning? feign originality? affect benev- 
olence or misanthropy? appeal to the gallery 
gods with claptraps and vulgar baits to catch 
applause ? 

How much of the pain and emphasis is 
necessary for the fair business of the stage, 
and how much of the rant and rouge is put on 
for the vanity of the actors ? His audience trusts 
him: can he trust himself? How much was 
deliberate calculation and imposture — how 
much was false sensibility — and how much 
true feeling? Where did the lie begin, and 
did he know where? and where did the truth 
end in the art and scheme of this man of genius, 
this actor, this quack? Some time since, I 
was in the company of a French actor who began 
after dinner, and at his own request, to sing 
French songs of the sort called des chansons 
grivoises, and which he performed admira- 
bly, and to the dissatisfaction of most persons 
present. Having finished these, he commenced 



a sentimental ballad — it was so charmingly 
sung that it touched all persons present, and 
especially the singer himself, whose voice 
trembled, whose eyes filled with emotion, and 
who was snivelling and weeping quite genuine 
tears by the time his own ditty was over. I 
suppose Sterne had this artistical sensibility; 
he used to blubber perpetually in his study, 
and finding his tears infectious, and that they 
brought him a great popularity, he exercised 
the lucrative gift of weeping: he utilised it, and 
cried on every occasion. I own that I don't 
value or respect much the cheap dribble of 
those fountains. He fatigues me with his per- 
petual disquiet and his uneasy appeals to my 
risible or sentimental faculties. He is always 
looking in my face, watching his effect, uncer- 
tain whether I think him an impostor or not; 
posture-making, coaxing, and imploring me. 
"See what sensibility I have — own now that 
I'm very clever — do cry now, you can't resist 
this." The humour of Swift and Rabelais, 
whom he pretended to succeed, poured from 
them as naturally as song does from a bird; 
they lose no manly dignity with it, but laugh 
their hearty great laugh out of their broad chests 
as nature bade them. But this man — who 
can make you laugh, who can make you cry too 
■ — never lets his reader alone, or will permit 
his audience repose: when you are quiet, he 
fancies he must rouse you, and turns over head 
and heels, or sidles up and whispers a nasty 
story. The man is a great jester, not a great 
homourist. He goes to work systematically 
and of cold blood; paints his face, puts on his 
ruff and motley clothes, and lays down his car- 
pet and tumbles on it. 

For instance, take the " Sentimental Jour- 
ney," and see in the writer the deliberate pro- 
pensity to make points and seek applause. He 
gets to "Dessein's Hotel," he wants a carriage 
to travel to Paris, he goes to the inn-yard, 
and begins what the actors call "business" 
at once. There is that little carriage (the 
desobligeante) . 

"Four months had elapsed since it had 
finished its career of Europe in the corner of 
Monsieur Dessein's coach-yard, and having 
sallied out thence but a vamped-up business 
at first, though it had been twice taken to pieces 
on Mont Cenis, it had not profited much by its 
adventures, but by none so little as the stand- 
ing so many months unpitied in the corner of 
Monsieur Dessein's coach-yard. Much, indeed, 
was not to be said for it — but something 
might — and when a few words will rescue 






THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 



429 



misery out of her distress, I hate the man 
who can be a churl of them." 

Le tour est fait! Paillasse has tumbled! 
Paillasse has jumped over the desobligeante, 
cleared it, hood and all, and bows to the noble 
company. Does anybody believe that this is a 
real Sentiment? that this luxury of generosity, 
this gallant rescue of Misery — out of an old 
cab, is genuine feeling? It is as genuine as 
the virtuous oratory of Joseph Surface when he 
begins, "The man who," etc., etc., and wishes 
to pass off for a saint with his credulous, good- 
humoured dupes. 

Our friend purchases the carriage : after turn- 
ing that notorious old monk to good account, 
and effecting (like a soft and good-natured 
Paillasse as he was, and very free with his 
money when he had it) an exchange of snuff- 
boxes with the old Franciscan, jogs out of 
Calais; sets down in immense figures on the 
credit side of his account the sous he gives 
away to the Montreuil beggars; and, at Nam- 
pont, gets out of the chaise and whimpers over 
that famous dead donkey, for which any sen- 
timentalist may cry who will. It is agreeably 
and skilfully done — that dead jackass: like 
Monsieur de Soubise's cook on the campaign, 
Sterne dresses it, and serves it up quite tender 
and with a very piquant sauce. But tears and 
fine feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, 
and funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, 
and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with 
a dead donkey inside ! Psha, mountebank ! 
I'll not give thee one penny more for that trick, 
donkey and all ! 

This donkey had appeared once before with 
signal effect. In 1765, three years before the 
publication of the "Sentimental Journey," 
the seventh and eighth volumes of "Tristram 
Shandy" were given to the world, and the 
famous Lyons donkey makes his entry in those 
volumes (pp. 315, 316): — ■ 

"'Twas by a poor ass, with a couple of large 
panniers at his back, who had just turned in 
to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cab- 
bage-leaves, and stood dubious, with his two 
forefeet at the inside of the threshold, and with 
his two hinder feet towards the street, as not 
knowing very well whether he was to go in or 
no. 

"Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I 
may) I cannot bear to strike : there is a patient 
endurance of suffering wrote so unaffectedly 
in his looks and carriage which pleads so 
mightily for him, that it always disarms me, 
and to that degree that I do not like to speak 



unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him 
where I will, whether in town or country, in 
cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or 
bondage, I have ever something civil to say to 
him on my part; and, as one word begets 
another (if he has as little to do as I), I gener- 
ally fall into conversation with him; and surely 
never is my imagination so busy as in framing 
responses from the etchings of his countenance; 
and where those carry me not deep enough, in 
flying from my own heart into his, and seeing 
what is natural for an ass to think — as well 
as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is 
the only creature of all the classes of beings 
below me with whom I can do this. . . . With 
an ass I can commune forever. 

"'Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was 
impracticable to pass betwixt him and the 
gate, 'art thou for coming in or going out?' 

"The ass twisted his head round to look up 
the street. 

"'Well!' replied I, 'we'll wait a minute for 
thy driver.' 

"He turned his head thoughtfully about, 
and looked wistfully the opposite way. 

"T understand thee perfectly,' answered I: 
'if thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he 
will cudgel thee to death. Well ! a minute is 
but a minute; and if it saves a fellow-creature 
a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.' 

"He was eating the stem of an artichoke 
as this discourse went on, and, in the little 
peevish contentions between hunger and un- 
savouriness, had dropped it out of his mouth 
half-a-dozen times, and had picked it up again. 
'God help thee, Jack!' said I, 'thou hast a 
bitter breakfast on't — and many a bitter day's 
labour, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its 
wages ! 'Tis all, all bitterness to thee — what- 
ever life is to others ! And now thy mouth, 
if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare 
say, as soot' (for he had cast aside the stem), 
'and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this 
world that will give thee a macaroon.' In 
saying this, I pulled out a paper of 'em, which 
I had just bought, and gave him one; and at 
this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites 
me that there was more of pleasantry in the 
conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a 
macaroon than of benevolence in giving him 
one, which presided in the act. 

"When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I 
pressed him to come in. The poor beast was 
heavy loaded — his legs seemed to tremble 
under him — he hung rather backwards, and, 
as I pulled at his halter, it broke in my hand. 



43° 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



He looked up pensive in my face : ' Don't thrash 
me with it; but if you will you may.' 'If I 
do,' said I, 'I'll bed—.'" 

A critic who refuses to see in this charming 
description wit, humour, pathos, a kind nature 
speaking, and a real sentiment, must be hard 
indeed to move and to please. A page or two 
farther we come to a description not less beau- 
tiful — a landscape and figures, deliciously 
painted by one who had the keenest enjoyment 
and the most tremulous sensibility: — 

" 'Twas in the road between Nismes and 
Lunel, where is the best Muscatto wine in all 
France: the sun was set, they had done their 
work: the nymphs had tied up their hair 
afresh, and the swains were preparing for a 
carousal. My mule made a dead point. 
"Tis the pipe and tambourine,' said I — 'I 
never will argue a point with one of your 
family as long as I live;' so leaping off his 
back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch 
and t'other into that, 'I'll take a dance,' said 
I, 'so stay you here.' 

"A sunburnt daughter of labour rose up 
from the group to meet me as I advanced 
towards them; her hair, which was of a dark 
chestnut approaching to a black, was tied up in 
a knot, all but a single tress. 

"'We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out 
both her hands, as if to offer them. 'And a 
cavalier you shall have,' said I, taking hold 
of both of them. 'We could not have done 
without you,' said she, letting go one hand, 
with self-taught politeness, and leading me up 
with the other. 

"A lame youth, whom Apollo had recom- 
pensed with a pipe, and to which he had added 
a tambourine of his own accord, ran sweetly 
over the prelude, as he sat upon the bank. 
'Tie me up this tress instantly,' said Nannette, 
putting a piece of string into my hand. It 
taught me to forget I was a stranger. The 
whole knot fell down — we had been seven 
years acquainted. The youth struck the note 
upon the tambourine, his pipe followed, and off 
we bounded. 

"The sister of the youth — who had stolen 
her voice from heaven — sang alternately with 
her brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne roundelay: 
' Viva la joia, fidon la tristessa.' The nymphs 
joined in unison, and their swains an octave 
below them. 

"Viva la joia was in Nannette's lips, viva 
la joia in her eyes. A transient spark of amity 
shot across the space betwixt us. She looked 
amiable. Why could I not live and end my 



days thus? 'Just Disposer of our joys and 
sorrows!' cried I, 'why could not a man sit 
down in the lap of content here, and dance, 
and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven 
with this nut-brown maid?' Capriciously did 
she bend her head on one side, and dance up 
insidious. 'Then 'tis time to dance off,' quoth 
I." 

And with this pretty dance and chorus, the 
volume artfully concludes. Even here one 
can't give the whole description. There is not 
a page in Sterne's writing but has something 
that were better away, a latent corruption — a 
hint, as of an impure presence. 

Some of that dreary doable entendre may be 
attributed to freer times and manners than 
ours, but not all. The foul satyr's eyes leer 
out of the leaves constantly: the last words the 
famous author wrote were bad and wicked — 
the last lines the poor stricken wretch penned 
were for pity and pardon. I think of these past 
writers and of one who lives amongst us now, 
and am grateful for the innocent laughter and 
the sweet and unsullied page which the author 
of "David Copperfield" gives to my children. 

VANITY FAIR 

CHAPTER XII 

In which Lord Steyne shows himself in a 
most Amiable Light 

When Lord Steyne was benevolently disposed, 
he did nothing by halves, and his, kindness 
towards the Crawley family did the greatest 
honour to his benevolent discrimination. His 
lordship extended his good-will to little Rawdon : 
he pointed out to the boy's parents the neces- 
sity of sending him to a public school: that he 
was of an age now when emulation, the first 
principles of the Latin language, pugilistic 
exercises, and the society of his fellow-boys 
would be of the greatest benefit to the boy. His 
father objected that he was not rich enough 
to send the child to a good public school; his 
mother, that Briggs was a capital mistress for 
him, and had brought him on (as indeed was the 
fact) famously in English, the Latin rudiments, 
and in general learning: but all these objec- 
tions disappeared before the generous perse- 
verance of the Marquis of Steyne. His lord- 
ship was one of the governors of that famous 
old collegiate institution called the Whitefriars. 
It had been a Cistercian Convent in old days, 
when the Smithfield, which is contiguous to it,- 



VANITY FAIR 



43i 



was a tournament ground. Obstinate heretics 
used to be brought thither convenient for 
burning hard by. Henry VIII., the Defender 
of the Faith, seized upon the monastery and its 
possessions, and hanged and tortured some of 
the monks who could not accommodate them- 
selves to the pace of his reform. Finally, a 
great merchant bought the house and land 
adjoining, in which, and with the help of other 
wealthy endowments of land and money, he 
established a famous foundation hospital for 
old men and children. An extern school grew 
round the old almost monastic foundation, 
which subsists still, with its middle-age costume 
and usages: and all Cistercians pray that it 
may long flourish. 

Of this famous house, some of the greatest 
noblemen, prelates, and dignitaries in England 
are governors: and as the boys are very com- 
fortably lodged, fed, and educated, and sub- 
sequently inducted to good scholarships at the 
University and livings in the Church, many little 
gentlemen are devoted to the ecclesiastical pro- 
fession from their tenderest years, and there is 
considerable emulation to procure nominations 
for the foundation. It was originally intended 
for the sons of poor and deserving clerics and 
laics; but many of the noble governors of the 
Institution, with an enlarged and rather 
capricious benevolence, selected all sorts of 
objects for their bounty. To get an education 
for nothing, and a future livelihood and pro- 
fession assured, was so excellent a scheme 
that some of the richest people did not disdain 
it; and not only great men's relations, but great 
men themselves, sent their sons to profit by 
the chance — Right Reverend Prelates sent 
their own kinsmen or the sons of their clergy, 
while, on the other hand, some great noblemen 
did not disdain to patronise the children of their 
confidential servants, — so that a lad entering 
this establishment had every variety of youthful 
society wherewith to mingle. 

Rawdon Crawley, though the only book 
which he studied was the Racing Calendar, and 
though his chief recollections of polite learning 
were connected with the floggings which he 
received at Eton in his early youth, had that 
decent and honest reverence for classical learning 
which all English gentlemen feel, and was glad 
to think that his son was to have a provision 
for life, perhaps, and a certain opportunity of 
becoming a scholar. And although his boy 
was his chief solace and companion, and en- 
deared to him by a thousand small ties, about 
which he did not care to speak to his wife, 



who had all along shown the utmost indifference 
to their son, yet Rawdon agreed at once to part 
with him, and to give up his own greatest com- 
fort and benefit for the sake of the welfare of 
the little lad. He did not know how fond he 
was of the child until it became necessary to let 
him go away. When he was gone, he felt more 
sad and downcast than he cared to own — far 
sadder than the boy himself, who was happy 
enough to enter a new career, and find com- 
panions of his own age. Becky burst out 
laughing once or twice, when the colonel, in 
his clumsy, incoherent way, tried to express 
his sentimental sorrows at the boy's departure. 
The poor fellow felt that his dearest pleasure and 
closest friend was taken from him. He looked 
often and wistfully at the little vacant bed in 
his dressing-room, where the child used to 
sleep. He missed him sadly of mornings, and 
tried in vain to walk in the Park without him. 
He did not know how solitary he was until little 
Rawdon was gone. He liked the people who 
were fond of him; and would go and sit for 
long hours with his good-natured sister Lady 
Jane, and talk to her about the virtues, and 
good looks, and hundred good qualities of 
the child. 

Young Rawdon's aunt, we have said, was 
very fond of him, as was her little girl, who 
wept copiously when the time for her cousin's 
departure came. The elder Rawdon was thank- 
ful for the fondness of mother and daughter. 
The very best and honestest feelings of the man 
came out in these artless out-pourings of pater- 
nal feeling in which he indulged in their pres- 
ence, and encouraged by their sympathy. 
He secured not only Lady Jane's kindness, but 
her sincere regard, by the feelings which he 
manifested, and which he could not show to 
his own wife. The two kinswomen met as 
seldom as possible. Becky laughed bitterly at 
Jane's feelings and softness; the other's kindly 
and gentle nature could not but revolt at her 
sister's callous behaviour. 

It estranged Rawdon from his wife more 
than he knew or acknowledged to himself. 
She did not care for the estrangement. Indeed, 
she did not miss him or anybody. She looked 
upon him as her errand-man and humble slave. 
He might be ever so depressed or sulky, and she 
did not mark his demeanour, or only treated it 
with a sneer. She was busy thinking about her 
position, or her pleasures, or her advancement 
in society; she ought to have held a great place 
in it, that is certain. 

It was honest Briggs who made up the little 



43 2 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



kit for the boy which he was to take to school. 
Molly, the housemaid, blubbered in the passage 
when he went away — Molly, kind and faithful 
in spite of a long arrear of unpaid wages. Mrs. 
Becky could not let her husband have the 
carriage to take the boy to school. Take the 
horses into the city ! — such a thing was never 
heard of. Let a cab be brought. She did not 
offer to kiss him when he went: nor did the 
child propose to embrace her: but gave a kiss 
to old Briggs (whom, in general, he was very 
shy of caressing), and consoled her by pointing 
out that he was to come home on Saturdays, 
when she would have the benefit of seeing him. 
As the cab rolled towards the city, Becky's 
carriage rattled off to the Park. She was chat- 
tering and laughing with a score of young 
dandies by the Serpentine, as the father and 
son entered at the old gates of the school — 
where Rawdon left the child, and came away 
with a sadder, purer feeling in his heart than 
perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever 
known since he himself came out of the nursery. 

He walked all the way home very dismally, 
and dined alone with Briggs. He was very kind 
to her, and grateful for her love and watch- 
fulness over the boy. His conscience smote 
him that he had borrowed Briggs's money, and 
aided in deceiving her. They talked about 
little Rawdon a long time, for Becky only came 
home to dress and go out to dinner — and 
then he went off uneasily to drink tea with 
Lady Jane, and tell her of what had happened, 
and how little Rawdon went off like a trump, 
and how he was to wear a gown and little knee- 
breeches, and how young Blackball, Jack 
Blackballs son, of the old regiment, had taken 
him in charge and promised to be kind to him. 

In the course of a week, young Blackball had 
constituted little Rawdon his fag, shoe-black, 
and breakfast toaster; initiated him into the 
mysteries of the Latin grammar, and thrashed 
him three or four times; but not severely. 
The little chap's good-natured honest face won 
his way for him. He only got that degree of 
beating which was, no doubt, good for him; 
and as for blacking shoes, toasting bread, and 
fagging in general, were these offices not deemed 
to be necessary parts of every young English 
gentleman's education? 

Our business does not lie with the second 
generation and Master Rawdon's life at school, 
otherwise the present tale might be carried to 
any indefinite length. The colonel went to 
see his son a short time afterwards, and found 
the lad sufficiently well and happy, grinning and 



laughing in his little black gown and little 
breeches. 

His father sagaciously tipped Blackball, 
his master, a sovereign, and secured that young 
gentleman's good-will towards his fag. As a 
protege of the great Lord Steyne, the nephew 
of a county member, and son of a colonel and 
C.B., whose name appeared in some of the 
most fashionable parties in the Morning Post, 
perhaps the school authorities were disposed 
not to look unkindly on the child. He had 
plenty of pocket-money, which he spent in 
treating his comrades royally to raspberry tarts, 
and he was often allowed to come home on 
Saturdays to his father, who always made a 
jubilee of that day. When free, Rawdon would 
take him to the play, or send him thither with 
the footman ; and on Sundays he went to church 
with Briggs and Lady Jane and his cousins. 
Rawdon marvelled over his stories about school, 
and fights, and fagging. Before long, he knew 
the names of all the masters and the principal 
boys as well as little Rawdon himself. He 
invited little Rawdon's crony from school, and 
made both the children sick with pastry, and 
oysters, and porter after the play. He tried 
to look knowing over the Latin grammar when 
little Rawdon showed him what part of that 
work he was "in." "Stick to it, my boy," 
he said to him with much gravity, "there's 
nothing like a good classical education! 
nothing ! " 

Becky's contempt for her husband grew 
greater every day. "Do what you like, — 
dine where you please, — go and have ginger- 
beer and sawdust at Astley's, or psalm-singing 
with Lady Jane, — only don't expect me to 
busy myself with the boy. I have your in- 
terests to attend to, as you can't attend to them 
yourself. I should like to know where you 
would have been now, and in what sort of a 
position in society, if I had not looked after 
you?" Indeed, nobody wanted poor old 
Rawdon at the parties whither Becky used to go. 
She was often asked without him now. She 
talked about great people as if she had the 
fee-simple of May Fair; and when the Court 
went into mourning, she always wore black. 

Little Rawdon being disposed of, Lord Steyne, 
who took such a parental interest in the affairs 
of this amiable poor family, thought that their 
expenses might be very advantageously cur- 
tailed by the departure of Miss Briggs; and 
that Becky was quite clever enough to take 
the management of her own house. It has been 
narrated, in a former chapter, how the benevo- 



VANITY FAIR 



433 



lent nobleman had given his protege money to 
pay off her little debt to Miss Briggs, who how- 
ever still remained behind with her friends; 
whence my lord came to the painful conclusion 
that Mrs. Crawley had made some other use of 
the money confided to her than that for which 
her generous patron had given the loan. 
However, Lord Steyne was not so rude as to 
impart his suspicions upon this head to Mrs. 
Becky, whose feelings might be hurt by any 
controversy on the money-question, and who 
might have a thousand painful reasons for dis- 
posing otherwise of his lordship's generous 
loan. But he determined to satisfy himself of 
the real state of the case: and instituted the 
necessary inquiries in a most cautious and 
delicate manner. 

In the first place he took an early opportu- 
nity of pumping Miss Briggs. That was not 
a difficult operation. A very little encourage- 
ment would set that worthy woman to talk 
volubly, and pour out all within her. And one 
day when Mrs. Rawdon had gone out to drive 
(as Mr. Fiche, his lordship's confidential ser- 
vant, easily learned at the livery stables where 
the Crawleys kept their carriage and horses, 
or rather, where the livery-man kept a car- 
riage and horses for Mr. and Mrs. Crawley) — 
my lord dropped in upon the Curzon Street 
house — asked Briggs for a cup of coffee — 
told her that he had good accounts of the little 
boy at school — and in five minutes found out 
from her that Mrs. Rawdon had given her 
nothing except a black silk gown, for which 
Miss Briggs was immensely grateful. 

He laughed within himself at this artless 
story. For the truth is, our dear friend Re- 
becca had given him a most circumstantial 
narration of Briggs's delight at receiving her 
money — eleven hundred and twenty-five pounds 
— and in what securities she had invested it; 
and what a pang Becky herself felt in being 
obliged to pay away such a delightful sum of 
money. "Who knows," the dear woman may 
have thought within herself, "perhaps he may 
give me a little more?" My lord, however, 
made no such proposal to the little schemer — ■ 
very likely thinking that he had been suffi- 
ciently generous already. 

He had the curiosity, then, to ask Miss 
Briggs about the state of her private affairs — 
and she told his lordship candidly what her 
position was — how Miss Crawley had left 
her a legacy — how her relatives had had part 
of it — how Colonel Crawley had put out another 
portion, for which she had the best security 



and interest — and how Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon 
had kindly busied themselves with Sir Pitt, 
who was to dispose of the remainder most 
advantageously for her, when he had time. 
My lord asked how much the colonel had al- 
ready invested for her, and Miss Briggs at once 
and truly told him that the sum was six hun- 
dred and odd pounds. 

But as soon as she had told her story, the 
voluble Briggs repented of her frankness, and 
besought my lord not to tell Mr. Crawley of 
the confessions which she had made. "The 
colonel was so kind — Mr. Crawley might 
be offended and pay back the money, for which 
she could get no such good interest anywhere 
else." Lord Steyne, laughing, promised he 
never would divulge their conversation, and 
when he and Miss Briggs parted he laughed 
still more. 

"What an accomplished little devil it is!" 
thought he. "What a splendid actress and 
manager ! She had almost got a second supply 
out of me the other day, with her coaxing ways. 
She beats all the women I have ever seen in the 
course of all my well spent life. They are 
babies compared to her. I am a greenhorn 
myself, and a fool in her hands — an old fool. 
She is insurpassable in lies." His lordship's 
admiration for Becky rose immeasurably at 
this proof of her cleverness. Getting the money 
was nothing — but getting double the sum she 
wanted, and paying nobody — it was a magnifi- 
cent stroke. And Crawley, my lord thought 
— Crawley is not such a fool as he looks and 
seems. He has managed the matter cleverly 
enough on his side. Nobody would ever have 
supposed from his face and demeanour that 
he knew anything about this money business; 
and yet he put her up to it, and has spent the 
money, no doubt. In this opinion my lord, we 
know, was mistaken; but it influenced a good 
deal his behaviour towards Colonel Crawley, 
whom he began to treat with even less than that 
semblance of respect which he had formerly 
shown towards that gentleman. It never en- 
tered into the head of Mrs. Crawley's patron 
that the little lady might be making a purse for 
herself; and, perhaps, if the truth must be 
told, he judged of Colonel Crawley by his 
experience of other husbands whom he had 
known in the course of the long and well spent 
life which had made him acquainted with a great 
deal of the weakness of mankind. My lord 
had bought so many men during his life, that 
he was surely to be pardoned for supposing that 
he had found the price of this one. 



434 



WILLIAM M \klTb.\CK TUACkKRAY 



Hi- taxed Becky upon the poinl on the very 
first occasion when he met her alone, and he 
complimented her, good humouredly, on her 
cleverness in getting more than the money 
which she required. Becky was only ■ little 
taken aback. It was not the habit of this dear 
creature to tell falsehoods, except when necessity 
compelled, l>m in these great emergencies it 
was her practice to lie very freely; and in an 
instant she was ready with another neat plau- 
sible circumstantial story which she adminis- 
tered to her patron. The previous statement 
which she had made to him was a falsehood 
a wicked falsehood: she owned it: I >u t who 
had made her tell it? " Ah, my lord," she said, 
"you don't know all 1 have to suffer and bear 
in silence: von see me gay and happy before 
von you little know what 1 have to endure 
when there is no protector near me. it wasmy 
husband, who, by threats and the most savage 
treatment, forced me to ask for that sum aboul 
which 1 deceived you. it was in-, who, fore- 
seeing that questions might be asked regarding 
tin- disposal of the money, forced me to account 
for it as 1 did. He took die money. He told 
me he had paid Miss BriggS; I did not want, 
1 did not dare to doul>t him. Pardon the wrong 

which a desperate man is forced to commit, 
and pity a miserable, miserable woman." 

She burst into tears as she spoke. Persecuted 

virtue never looked more bewitchingly wretched. 
They had a Ion;'; conversation, driving round 

and round the Regent's Park in Mis (.'raw lev's 
carriage together, a conversation oi which it 

is not necessary to repeal the details: but the 

upshot of it was, that, when beckv came home, 
she Hew to her dear BriggS with a smiling face, 
and announced that she had some \er\ good 
news for her Lord Stevne had acted in the 
noblest and most gcncious manner, lie was 
always thinking how and when he could <,lo 
>\o>n\ Now that little Rawdon was gone to 
school, a dear companion and friend was no 

longer necessary to her. she was grieved 
beyond measure to part with Briggs; but her 
means required that she should practise every 

retrenchment, ami her sorrow was mitigated 
by the idea that her dear BriggS would be far 
better provided for bv her generous patron than 
in her humble home. Mrs. Pilkington, the 
housekeeper at Gauntly Hall, was growing 
exceedingly old, feeble, and rheumatic: she 

was not equal to the work oi superintending 

that vast mansion, and must be on the lookout 
for a successor It was a splendid position. 
The family did not go to Gauntly once in two 



years. \t other times the housekeeper was 

tin- mistress of the magnificent mansion -had 
four i'o\ers daily lor her table; was visited by 
the clergy ami the most respectable people of 
tin- county was the lady of Gauntly, in fact; 
and the two last housekeepers before Mrs. 

Pilkington had married rectors of Gauntly: 

but Mrs. 1'. could not, being the aunt of the 
present rector. The place was not to be hers 
yet; but she might go down on a visit to Mrs. 
Pilkington, and see whether she would like 
to succeed her. 

What words can paint the ecstatic gratitude 
of BriggS I AH she stipulated for was that little 
Rawdon should be allowed to come down and 
see her at the Hall. Reeky promised this 
anything. She ran up to her husband when 
he came home, and told him the joyful news. 
Rawdon was glad, deuced glad; the weight 
was off his conscience about poor Briggs's 
money. She was provided lor, at am' rate, 
but but his mind was disquiet. He did not 
seem to be all tight somehow. He told little 
Southdown what Lord Slcvnc had done, and 
the young man eyed Crawley with an air which 
surprised the latter. 

lie told Lady Jane of this second proof of 
Steyne's bounty, and she, too, looked oM and 
alarmed; so did Sir Pitt. "She is too Clevel- 
and and gay, to be allowed to go from party 
to party without a companion," both said. 
" You must go with her, Rawdon, wherever she 
goes, and you must have somebody with her 

one oi the girls from Oueen's Craw lev, 
perhaps, though they were rather giddy guar- 
dians for her." 

Somebody Becky should have. Rut, in the 
meantime, it was clear that honest BriggS must 
not lose her chance of settlement for life; and 
so she and her bags were packed, and she 
set off on her journev. And so two of Raw 
don's out sentinels were in the hands of the 

enemy. 

Sir Pitt went and expostulated with his 
sister in law upon the subject of the dismissal 
oi BriggS, and other matters of delicate family 
interest. In vain she pointed out to him how 
necessary was the protection of Lord Steyne 
for her poor husband; how cruel it would be 
on their part to deprive BriggS of the position 
offered to her. Cajolements, coaxings, smiles, 
tears could not satisfy Sir Pitt, and he had 
Something very like a quarrel with his once 

admired Becky, lie spoke of the honour of 
the family; the unsullied reputation of the 
Crawleys: expressed himself in indignant 



VANITY FAIR 



435 



tones about her receiving those young French 
men those wild young men of fashion, my 
ford Steyne himself, whose carriage was 
always a1 her door, who passed hours daily 
in her company, and whose constant presence 
made the world talk aboul her. As the head of 
the house he implored her to be more prudent. 
Society was already speaking lightly of her. 
I .dkI Steyne, though a no hie man oi the greatest 

station and talents, was a man whose attentions 

would compromise any woman; lie besought, 
be implored, he commanded his sister in law 
to be watchful in her intercourse with that 
nobleman 
Becky promised anything and everything 

that Pitt wanted; lint Lord Steyne came to 
her house as often as ever, and Sir fill's angel 
increased. I wonder was Lady |ane angry or 
pleased llial her husband at last found fault 

with his favourite Rebecca? Lord Steyne's 

visits continuing, his own ceased; and his 

wile was for refusing all further intercourse 
with thai nobleman, and declining the invi 
tation to the Charade-nighl which the mai 
chioness sent to her; bul Sir Pitt thought it 

was necessary lo accept it, as His Royal High 

ness would be there. 
Although he went to the party in question, 

Sir fill quitted it very early, and his wife, loo, 
was very glad lo come away. Hecky hardly 
so much as spoke lo him or noticed her sister 
in law. fill Crawley declared her behaviour 
was monstrously indecorous, reprobated in 
Strong terms the habit of play acting and 

fancy-dressing, as highly unbecoming a Brit- 
ish female; and after the charades were over, 
took his brother Rawdon severely tO task for 

appearing himself, and allowing his wife to 
join In such improper exhibitions. 

Rawdon said she should not join in any 

more such amusements; but, indeed, and per 

haps from hints from his elder brother and 
sister, he had already become a very walchful 

and exemplary domestic character. He left 

off Ill's dubs and billiards. He never left 
home, lie look Hecky out lo drive: he wenl 

laboriously with her to all her parties. When 

ever my ford Steyne called, he was sure (o find 
the colonel. And when Hecky proposed lo go 
oiil without her husband, or received invila 
(ions for herself, he peremptorily ordered her 
to refuse them; and there was thai in the 
gentleman's manner which enforced obedience. 
Little Hecky, to do her justice, was (harmed 
with Rawdon's gallantry. If he was surly, 
she never was. Whether friends were present 



or absent, she had always a kind smile for 
him, and was attentive to his pleasure and 

comfort. It was the early days of their mar 
riage over again: the same good-humour, 
provenances, merriment, and artless confidence 
and regard. "How much pleasanter ii is," 

she would say, "to have you liy my side in the 

carriage than that foolish old Briggsl Lei us 

always go on so, dear Rawdon. How nice it 
would lie, and how happy we should always 
lie, if we had I nit the money ! " lie fell a:.li !( |> 
after dinner in his chair; he did not see ihe 
face opposite lo him, haggard, weary, and ler 

rible; it lighted up with fresh candid smiles 

when he woke. Il kissed him gaily. lie 
wondered that he had ever had suspicions. 
No, he never had suspicions; all (hose duinl) 
doubtS and surly misgivings which had lieen 
gathei in,!', on his mind were nieie idle jealousies. 
She was fond of him; she always had been 
As for her shining in society, il was no fault 
ol hers; she was formed to shine there. Was 
there any woman who could talk, or sing, or 

do anything Like her? If she would hut like 
the boyl Rawdon thought. Hut the mother 

and son never could lie brought together, 

And il was while Rawdon's mind was agi 

tated with these doubts and perplexities that 
the incident occurred which was mentioned in 

the lasl chapter; and Ihe unfortunate colonel 
found himself a prisoner away from home. 

CHAPTER Xlll 
A Rescue and a ( ! u astkophe 

Friend Rawdon drove on ihen lo Mr. Moss's 
mansion in Cursilor St reel, and was duly in- 
dueled into that dismal place of hospitality. 

Morning was breaking over the cheerful house 

tops of ( 'liaiicery fane as Ihe rattling cab woke 
up the echoes there. A little pink eyed |ew 
boy, with a head as ruddy as the rising morn, 
let the parly into the house, and Rawdon was 

wrli omed to the gr I floor apai tments by 

Mr. Moss, his (ravelling companion and host, 
who cheerfully asked him if he would like a 
glass of something warm after his drive. 

The colonel was noi s<> depressed as some 

mortals would be, who, quitting a palace and 
a placens uxor, find themselves barred into a 
sponging house, for, if ihe truth must be told, 

he had been a lodger al Mr. Moss's eslab 

lishment once or twice before. We have noi 

thought il necessary in ihe previous course 

of this narrative to mention these trivial Utile 



43 6 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



domestic incidents: but the reader may be 
assured that they can't (.infrequently occur in 
the life of a man who lives on nothing a year. 

Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the colonel, 
then a bachelor, had been liberated by the 
generosity of his aunt: on the second mishap, 
little Becky, with the greatest spirit and kind- 
ness, had borrowed a sum of money from Lord 
Southdown, and had coaxed her husband's 
creditor (who was her shawl, velvet-gown, lace 
pocket-handkerchief, trinket, and gimcrack 
purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the 
sum claimed, and Rawdon's promissory note 
for the remainder: so on both these occasions 
the capture and release had been conducted 
with the utmost gallantry on all sides, and 
Moss and the colonel were therefore on the 
very best of terms. 

"You'll find your old bed, colonel, and 
everything comfortable," that gentleman said, 
"as I may honestly say. You may be pretty 
sure it's kep aired, and by the best of com- 
pany, too. It was slep in the night afore last 
by the Honourable Capting Famish, of the 
Fiftieth Dragoons, whose mar took him out, 
after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said. 
But, Law bless you, I promise you, he punished 
my champagne, and had a party ere every night 
— reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs 
and the West End — Captain Ragg, the Hon- 
ourable Deuceace, who lives in the Temple, 
and some fellers as knows a good glass of wine, 
1 warrant you. I've got a Doctor of Diwinity 
upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room, and 
Mrs. Moss has a tably-dy-hoty at half-past 
five, and a little cards or music afterwards, 
when we shall be most happy to see you." 

"I'll ring when I want anything," said 
Rawdon, and went quietly to his bedroom. 
He was an old soldier, we have said, and not 
to be disturbed by any little shocks of fate. 
A weaker man would have sent off a letter to 
his wife on the instant of his capture. "But 
what is the use of disturbing her night's rest?" 
thought Rawdon. "She won't know whether 
I am in my room or not. It will be time 
enough to write to her when she has had her 
sleep out, and I have had mine. It's only a 
hundred and seventy, and the deuce is in it if 
we can't raise that." And so, thinking about 
little Rawdon (whom he would not have know 
that he was in such a queer place), the colonel 
turned into the bed lately occupied by Captain 
Famish, and fell asleep. It was ten o'clock 
when he woke up, and the ruddy-headed 
youth brought him, with conscious pride, a 



fine silver dressing-case, wherewith he might 
perform the operation of shaving. Indeed, 
Mr. Moss's house, though somewhat dirty, 
was splendid throughout. There were dirty 
trays, and wine-coolers en permanence on the 
sideboard, huge dirty gilt cornices, with dingy 
yellow satin hangings to the barred windows 
which looked into Cursitor Street — vast and 
dirty gilt picture-frames surrounding pieces 
sporting and sacred, all of which works were 
by the greatest masters; and fetched the 
greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in 
the course of which they were sold and bought 
over and over again. The colonel's breakfast 
was served to him in the same dingy and 
gorgeous plated ware. Miss Moss, a dark- 
eyed maid in curl-papers, appeared with the 
teapot, and, smiling, asked the colonel how 
he had slep? and she brought him in the 
Morning Post, with the names of all the great 
people who had figured at Lord Steyne's 
entertainment the night before. It contained 
a brilliant account of the festivities, and of 
the beautiful and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon 
Crawley's admirable personifications. 

After a lively chat with this lady (who sat 
on the edge of the breakfast-table in an easy 
attitude, displaying the drapery of her stock- 
ing and an ex-white satin shoe, which was 
down at heel), Colonel Crawley called for pens 
and ink and paper; and being asked how 
many sheets, chose one, which was brought 
to him between Miss Moss's own finger and 
thumb. Many a sheet had that dark-eyed 
damsel brought in ; many a poor fellow had 
scrawled and blotted hurried lines of entreaty, 
and paced up and down that awful room until 
his messenger brought back the reply. Poor 
men always use messengers instead of the post. 
Who has not had their letters, with the wafers 
wet, and the announcement that a person is 
waiting in the hall? 

Now, on the score of his application, Rawdon 
had not many misgivings. 

"Dear Becky," (Rawdon wrote): — 

"I hope you slept well. Don't he frightened 
if I don't bring in your coffy. Last night as I 
was coming home smoaking, I met with an 
accadent. I was nabbed by Moss of Cursitor 
Street — from whose gilt and splendid parler I 
write this — the same that had me this time 
two years. Miss Moss brought in my tea — 
she is grown very fat, and, as usual, had her 
stockens down at heal. 

"It's Nathan's business — a hundrcd-and- 



VANITY FAIR 



437 



fifty — with costs, hundred-and-seventy. 
Please send me my desk and some cloths — 
I'm in pumps and a white tye (something like 
Miss M.'s stockings) — I've seventy in it. 
And as soon as you get this, Drive to Nathan's 
— offer him seventy-five down, and ask him 
to renew — say I'll take wine — ■ we may as 
well have some dinner sherry; but not picturs, 
they're too dear. 

"If he won't stand it. Take my ticker and 
such of your things as you can spare, and 
send them to Balls — we must, of coarse, have 
the sum to-night. It won't do to let it stand 
over, as to-morrow's Sunday; the beds here 
are not very clean, and there may be other 
things out against me — I'm glad it ain't 
Rawdon's Saturday for coming home. God 
bless you. 

" Yours in haste, 

"R. C. 

"P.S. Make haste and come." 

This letter, sealed with a wafer, was de- 
spatched by one of the messengers who are 
always hanging about Mr. Moss's establish- 
ment; and Rawdon, having seen him depart, 
went out in the court-yard, and smoked his 
cigar with a tolerably easy mind — in spite of 
the bars overhead ; for Mr. Moss's court-yard 
is railed in like a cage, lest the gentlemen who 
are boarding with him should take a fancy to 
escape from his hospitality. 

Three hours, he calculated, would be the 
utmost time required, before Becky should 
arrive and open his prison doors: and he 
passed these pretty cheerfully in smoking, in 
reading the paper, and in the coffee-room with 
an acquaintance, Captain Walker, who hap- 
pened to be there, and with whom he cut for 
sixpences for some hours, with pretty equal 
luck on either side. 

But the day passed away and no messenger 
returned, — no Becky. Mr. Moss's tably-dy- 
hoty was served at the appointed hour of half- 
past five, when such of the gentlemen lodging 
in the house as could afford to pay for the 
banquet, came and partook of it in the splendid 
front parlour before described, and with which 
Mr. Crawley's temporary lodging communi- 
cated, when Miss M. (Miss Hem, as her papa 
called her) appeared without the curl-papers of 
the morning, and Mrs. Hem did the honours 
of a prime boiled leg of mutton and turnips, 
of which the colonel ate with a very faint 
appetite. Asked whether he would "stand" 
a bottle of champagne for the company, he 



consented, and the ladies drank to his 'ealth, 
and Mr. Moss, in the most polite manner, 
"looked towards him." 

In the midst of this repast, however, the 
door-bell was heard, — young Moss of the 
ruddy hair rose up with the keys and answered 
the summons, and, coming back, told the colo- 
nel that the messenger had returned with a 
bag, a desk, and a letter, which he gave him. 
"No ceramony, colonel, I beg," said Mrs. 
Moss with a wave of her hand, and he opened 
the letter rather tremulously. — It was a 
beautiful letter, highly scented, on a pink 
paper, and with a light-green seal. 

"Mon pauvre cher petit," (Mrs Crawley 
wrote) — 

"I could not sleep one wink for thinking of 
what had become of my odious old monstre: 
and only got to rest in the morning after send- 
ing for Mr. Blench (for I was in a fever), who 
gave me a composing draught and left orders 
with Finette that I should be disturbed on no 
account. So that my poor old man's messenger, 
who had bien mauvaise mine, Finette says, and 
sentoit le Genievre remained in the hall for 
some hours waiting my bell. You may fancy 
my state when I read your poor dear old ill- 
spelt letter. 

"Ill as I was, I instantly called for the 
carriage, and as soOn as I was dressed (though 
I couldn't drink a drop of chocolate — I assure 
you I couldn't without my monstre to bring it 
to me), I drove ventre a terre to Nathan's. I 
saw him — I wept — I cried — I fell at his 
odious knees. Nothing would mollify the 
horrid man. He would have all the money, 
he said, or keep my poor monstre in prison. 
I drove home with the intention of paying that 
triste visile chez mon oncle (when every trinket 
I have should be at your disposal though they 
would not fetch a hundred pounds, for some, 
you know, are with ce cher oncle already), and 
found Milor there with the Bulgarian old 
sheep-faced monster, who had come to com- 
pliment me upon last night's performances. 
Paddington came in, too, drawling and lisping 
and twiddling his hair; so did Champignac, 
and his chef — everybody with foison of com- 
pliments and pretty speeches — plaguing poor 
me, who longed to be rid of them, and was 
thinking every moment of the time of mon pauvre 
prisonnier. 

"When they were gone, I went down on my 
knees to Milor; told him we were going to 
pawn everything, and begged and prayed him 



438 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



to give me two hundred pounds. He pish'd 
and psha'd in a fury — told me not to be such 
a fool as to pawn — and said he would see 
whether he could lend me the money. At last 
he went away, promising that he would send 
it me in the morning: when I will bring it to 
my poor old monster with a kiss from his 
affectionate 

"Becky. 
"I am writing in bed. Oh, I have such a 
headache and such a heartache!" 

When Rawdon read over this letter, he 
turned so red and looked so savage, that the 
company at the table-d'hote easily perceived 
that bad news had reached him. All his sus- 
picions, which he had been trying to banish, 
returned upon him. She could not even go out 
and sell her trinkets to free him. She could 
laugh and talk about compliments paid to her, 
whilst he was in prison. Who had put him 
there? Wenham had walked with him. 
Was there ... He could hardly bear to 
think of what he suspected. Leaving the room 
hurriedly, he ran into his own — opened his 
desk, wrote two hurried lines, which he directed 
to Sir Pitt or Lady Crawley, and bade the 
messenger carry them at once to Gaunt Street, 
bidding him to take a cab, and promising him 
a guinea if he was back in an hour. 

In the note he besought his dear brother 
and sister, for the sake of God; for the sake 
of his dear child and his honour; to come to 
him and relieve him from his difficulty. He 
was in prison: he wanted a hundred pounds 
to set him free — he entreated them to come 
to him. 

He went back to the dining-room after de- 
spatching his messenger, and called for more 
wine. He laughed and talked with a strange 
boisterousness, as the people thought. Some- 
times he laughed madly at his own fears, and 
went on drinking for an hour; listening all 
the while for the carriage which was to bring 
his fate back. 

At the expiration of that time, wheels were 
heard whirling up to the gate — the young 
janitor went out with his gate-keys. It was a 
lady whom he let in at the bailiff's door. 

"Colonel Crawley," she said, trembling very 
much. He, with a knowing look, locked the 
outer door upon her — then unlocked and 
opened the inner one, and calling out, " Colonel, 
you're wanted," led her into the back parlour, 
which he occupied. 

Rawdon came in from the dining-parlour 



where all those people were carousing, into his 
back room; a flare of coarse light following 
him into the apartment where the lady stood, 
still very nervous. 

"It is I, Rawdon," she said, in a timid 
voice, which she strove to render cheerful. 
"It is Jane." Rawdon was quite overcome by 
that kind voice and presence. He ran up to 
her — caught her in his arms — gasped out 
some inarticulate words of thanks, and fairly 
sobbed on her shoulder. She did not know 
the cause of his emotion. 

The bills of Mr. Moss were quickly settled, 
perhaps to the disappointment of that gentle- 
man, who had counted on having the colonel 
as his guest over Sunday at least; and Jane, 
with beaming smiles and happiness in her 
eyes, carried away Rawdon from the bailiff's 
house, and they went homewards in the cab 
in which she had hastened to his release. 
"Pitt was gone to a Parliamentary dinner," 
she said, "when Rawdon's note came, and so, 
dear Rawdon, I — I came myself;" and she 
put her kind hand in his. Perhaps it was 
well for Rawdon Crawley that Pitt was away 
at that dinner. Rawdon thanked his sister a 
hundred times, and with an ardour of grati- 
tude which touched and almost alarmed that 
soft-hearted woman. "Oh," said he in his 
rude, artless way, "you — you don't know how 
I'm changed since I've known you, and — and 
little Rawdy. I — I'd like to change some- 
how. You see I want — I want to be — " 
He did not finish the sentence, but she could 
interpret it. And that night after he left her, 
and as she sat by her own little boy's bed, she 
prayed humbly for that poor wayworn sinner. 

Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly. 
It was nine o'clock at night. He ran across 
the streets, and the great squares of Vanity 
Fair, and at length came up breathless oppo- 
site his own house. He started back and fell 
against the railings, trembling as he looked 
up. The drawing-room windows were blazing 
with light. She had said that she was in bed 
and ill. He stood there for some time, the 
light from the rooms on his pale face. 

He took out his door-key and let himself 
into the house. He could hear laughter in the 
upper rooms. He was in the ball-dress in 
which he had been captured the night before. 
He went silently up the stairs; leaning against 
the banisters at the stair-head. — Nobody was 
stirring in the house besides — all the servants 
had been sent away. Rawdon heard laughter 






VANITY FAIR 



439 



within — laughter and singing. Becky was 
singing a snatch of the song of the night before; 
a hoarse voice shouted "Brava! Brava!" — 
it was Lord Steyne's. 

Rawdon opened the door and went in. A 
little table with a dinner was laid out — and 
wine and plate. Steyne was hanging over the 
sofa on which Becky sat. The wretched 
woman was in a brilliant full toilet, her arms 
and all her fingers sparkling with bracelets and 
rings: and the brilliants on her breast which 
Steyne had given her. He had her hand in 
his, and was bowing over it to kiss it, when 
Becky started up with a faint scream as she 
caught sight of Rawdon' s white face. At the 
next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, 
as if to welcome her husband: and Steyne 
rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury 
in his looks. 

He, too, attempted a laugh — and came 
forward holding out his hand. "What, come 
back! How d'ye do, Crawley?" he said, the 
nerves of his mouth twitching as he tried to 
grin at the intruder. 

There was that in Rawdon's face which 
caused Becky to fling herself before him. "I 
am innocent, Rawdon," she said; "before 
God, I am innocent." She clung hold of his 
coat, of his hands; her own were all covered 
with serpents, and rings, and bawbles. "I 
am innocent. — Say I am innocent," she said 
to Lord Steyne. 

He thought a trap had been laid for him, 
and was as furious with the wife as with the 
husband. "You innocent! Damn you," he 
screamed out. "You innocent! Why, every 
trinket you have on your body is paid for by 
me. I have given you thousands of pounds 
which this fellow has spent, and for which he 
has sold you. Innocent, by — ! You're as 
innocent as your mother, the ballet-girl, and 
your husband, the bully. Don't think to 
frighten me as you have done others. Make 
way, sir, and let me pass;" and Lord Steyne 
seized up his hat, and, with flame in his eyes, 
and looking his enemy fiercely in the face, 
marched upon him, never for a moment doubt- 
ing that the other would give way. 

But Rawdon Crawley, springing out, seized 
him by the neck-cloth, until Steyne, almost 
strangled, writhed, and bent under his arm. 
"You lie, you dog!" said Rawdon. "You 
lie, you coward and villain!" And he struck 
the peer twice over the face with his open 
hand, and flung him bleeding to the ground. 
It was all done before Rebecca could interpose. 



She stood there trembling before him. She 
admired her husband, strong, brave, and vic- 
torious. 

"Come here," he said. — She came up at 
once. 

"Take off those things." — She began, 
trembling, pulling the jewels from her arms, 
and the rings from her shaking fingers, and 
held them all in a heap, quivering and looking 
up at him. "Throw them down," he said, 
and she dropped them. He tore the diamond 
ornament out of her breast, and flung it at 
Lord Steyne. It cut him on his bald fore- 
head. Steyne wore the scar to his dying day. 

"Come up stairs," Rawdon said to his wife. 
"Don't kill me, Rawdon," she said. He 
laughed savagely. — "I want to see if that 
man lies about the money as he has about me. 
Has he given you any?" 

"No," said Rebecca, "that is — " 

"Give me your keys," Rawdon answered, 
and they went out together. 

Rebecca gave him all the keys but one; 
and she was in hopes that he would not have 
remarked the absence of that. It belonged to 
the little desk which Amelia had given her in 
early days, and which she kept in a secret 
place. But Rawdon flung open boxes and 
wardrobes, throwing the multifarious trumpery 
of their contents here and there, and at last 
he found the desk. The woman was forced 
to open it. It contained papers, love-letters 
many years old — all sorts of small trinkets 
and woman's memoranda. And it contained 
a pocket-book with bank-notes. Some of 
these were dated ten years back, too, and one 
was quite a fresh one — a note for a thousand 
pounds which Lord Steyne had given her. 

"Did he give you this?" Rawdon said. 

"Yes," Rebecca answered. 

"I'll send it to him to-day," Rawdon said 
(for day had dawned again, and many hours 
had passed in this search), "and I will pay 
Briggs, who was kind to the boy, and some 
of the debts. You will let me know where I 
shall send the rest to you. You might have 
spared me a hundred pounds, Becky, out of 
all this — I have always shared with you." 

"I am innocent," said Becky. And he left 
her without another word. 

What were her thoughts when he left her? 
She remained for hours after he was gone, the 
sunshine pouring into the room, and Rebecca 
sitting alone on the bed's edge. The drawers 
were all opened and their contents scattered 



44o 



CHARLES DICKENS 



about, — dresses and feathers, scarfs and 
trinkets, a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a 
wreck. Her hair was falling over her shoulders ; 
her gown was torn where Rawdon had wrenched 
the brilliants out of it. She heard him go 
down stairs a few minutes after he left her, 
and the door slamming and closing on him. 
She knew he would never come back. He 
was gone forever. Would he kill himself? — 
she thought — not until after he had met 
Lord Steyne. She thought of her long past 
life, and all the dismal incidents of it. Ah, 
how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely, 
and profitless! Should she take laudanum, 
and end it, too — have done with all hopes, 
schemes, debts, and triumphs? The French 
maid found her in this position — sitting in 
the midst of her miserable ruins with clasped 
hands and dry eyes. The woman was her 
accomplice and in Steyne's pay. "Mon Dieu, 
madame, what has happened?" she asked. 

What had happened? Was she guilty or 
not? She said not; but who could tell what 
was truth which came from those lips; or if 
that corrupt heart was in this case pure? All 
her lies and her schemes, all her selfishness and 
her wiles, all her wit and genius had come to 
this bankruptcy. The woman closed the cur- 
tains, and with some entreaty and show of 
kindness, persuaded her mistress to lie down 
on the bed. Then she went below and gathered 
up the trinkets which had been lying on the 
floor since Rebecca dropped them there at her 
husband's orders, and Lord Steyne went away. 



CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) 
A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR 

There was once a child, and he strolled 
about a good deal, and thought of a number 
of things. He had a sister, who was a child, 
too, and his constant companion. These two 
used to wonder all day long. They wondered 
at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered 
at the height and blueness of the sky; they 
wondered at the depth of the bright water; 
they wondered at the goodness and the power 
of God who made the lovely world. 

They used to say to one another sometimes, 
supposing all the children upon earth were to 
die, would the flowers, and the water, and the 
sky be sorry? They believed they would be 
sorry. For, said they, the buds are the chil- 
dren of the flowers, and the little playful 



streams that gambol down the hillsides are the 
children of the water; and the smallest bright 
specks playing at hide-and-seek in the sky all 
night, must surely be the children of the stars; 
and they would all be grieved to see their 
playmates, the children of men, no more. 

There was one clear shining star that used 
to come out in the sky before the rest, near 
the church spire, above the graves. It was 
larger and more beautiful, they thought, than 
all others, and every night they watched for it, 
standing hand in hand at the window. Who- 
ever saw it first, cried out, "I see the star!" 
And often they cried out both together, know- 
ing so well when it would rise, and where. So 
they grew to be such friends with it, that 
before lying down in their beds, they always 
looked out once again, to bid it good night; 
and when they were turning around to sleep, 
they used to say, "God bless the star!" 

But while she was very young, oh, very, 
very young, the sister drooped, and came to 
be so weak that she could no longer stand 
in the window at night; and then the child 
looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw 
the star, turned round and said to the patient, 
pale face on the bed, "I see the star!" and 
then a smile would come upon the face, and a 
little weak voice used to say, "God bless my 
brother and the star!" 

And so the time came, all too soon ! when 
the child looked out alone, and when there 
was no face on the bed ; and when there was a 
little grave among the graves, not there before: 
and when the star made long rays down tow- 
ard him, as he saw it through his tears. 

Now, these rays were so bright, and they 
seemed to make such a shining way from earth 
to heaven, that when the child went to his 
solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and 
dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a 
train of people taken up that sparkling road 
by angels. And the star, opening, showed 
him a great world of light, where many more 
such angels waited to receive them. 

All these angels who were waiting turned 
their beaming eyes upon the people who were 
carried up into the star; and some came out 
from the long rows in which they stood, and 
fell upon the people's necks, and kissed them 
tenderly, and went away with them down 
avenues of light, and were so happy in their 
company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy. 

But there were many angels who did not go 
with them, and among them one he knew. 
The patient face that once had lain upon the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 



441 



bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart 
found out his sister among all the host. 

His sister's angel lingered near the entrance 
of the star, and said to the leader among those 
who had brought the people thither: — 

"Is my brother come?" 

And he said, "No." 

She was turning hopefully away, when the 
child stretched out his arms, and cried, "O 
sister, I am here! Take me!" And then she 
turned her beaming eyes upon him and it was 
night ; and the star was shining into the room, 
making long rays down toward him as he saw 
it through his tears. 

From that hour forth the child looked out 
upon the star as on the home he was to go to, 
when his time should come; and he thought 
that he did not belong to the earth alone, but 
to the star, too, because of his sister's angel 
gone before. 

There was a baby born to be a brother to 
the child; and while he was so little that he 
never yet had spoken word, he stretched his 
tiny form out on his bed and died. 

Again the child dreamed of the opened star, 
and of the company of angels, and the train 
of people, and the rows of angels with their 
beaming eyes all turned upon those people's 
faces. 

Said his sister's angel to the leader: — 

"Is my brother come?" 

And he said, "Not that one, but another." 

As the child beheld his brother's angel in 
her arms, he cried: "O sister, I am here! 
Take me!" And she turned and smiled upon 
him, and the star was shining. 

He grew to be a young man, and was busy 
at his books, when an old servant came to 
him and said : — 

"Thy mother is no more. I bring her 
blessing on her darling son!" 

Again at night he saw the star, and all that 
former company. Said his sister's angel to the 
leader: — 

"Is my brother come?" 

And he said, "Thy mother!" 

A mighty cry of joy went forth through all 
the star, because the mother was reunited to 
her two children. And he stretched out his 
arms and cried: "O mother, sister, and 
brother, I am here! Take me!" And they 
answered him, "Not yet." And the star was 
shining. 

He grew to be a man whose hair was turn- 
ing gray, and he was sitting in his chair by the 
fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face 



bedewed with tears, when the star opened once 
again. 

Said his sister's angel to the leader, "Is my 
brother come?" 

And he said, "Nay, but his maiden daughter." 

And the man who had been the child saw 
his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial 
creature among those three, and he said, 
"My daughter's head is on my sister's bosom, 
and her arm is round my mother's neck, and 
at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I 
can bear the parting from her, God be praised ! " 

And the star was shining. 

Thus the child came to be an old man, and 
his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his 
steps were slow and feeble, and his back was 
bent. And one night as he lay upon his bed, 
his children standing round, he cried, as he 
had cried so long ago : — 

"I see the star!" 

They whispered one another, "He is dying." 

And he said: "I am. My age is falling 
from me like a garment, and I move toward 
the star as a child. And, O my Father, now I 
thank thee that it has so often opened to receive 
those dear ones who await me!" 

And the star was shining; and it shines 
upon his grave. 

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 

CHAPTER V 

Boffin's Bower 

Over against a London house, a corner 
house not far from Cavendish Square, a man 
with a wooden leg had sat for some years, 
with his remaining foot in a basket in cold 
weather, picking up a living on this wise: — 
Every morning at eight o'clock, he stumped 
to the corner, carrying a chair, a clothes-horse, 
a pair of trestles, a board, a basket, and an 
umbrella, all strapped together. Separating 
these, the board and trestles became a counter, 
the basket supplied the few small lots of fruit 
and sweets that he offered for sale upon it 
and became a foot-warmer, the unfolded 
clothes-horse displayed a choice collection of 
half-penny ballads and became a screen, and 
the stool planted within it became his post 
for the rest of the day. All weathers saw the 
man at the post. This is to be accepted in a 
double sense, for he contrived a back to his 
wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp- 
post. When the weather was wet, he put his 
umbrella over his stock in trade, not over him- 



442 



CHARLES DICKENS 



self; when the weather was dry, he furled 
that faded article, tied it round with a piece 
of yarn, and laid it crosswise under the trestles : 
where it looked like an unwholesomely-forced 
lettuce that had lost in colour and crispness 
what it had gained in size. 

He had established his right to the corner, 
by imperceptible prescription. He had never 
varied his ground an inch, but had in the 
beginning diffidently taken the corner upon 
which the side of the house gave. A howling 
corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in 
the summer time, an undesirable corner at the 
best of times. Shelterless fragments of straw 
and paper got up revolving storms there, when 
the main street was at peace; and the water- 
cart, as if it were drunk or short-sighted, came 
blundering and jolting round it, making it 
muddy when all else was clean. 

On the front of his sale-board hung a little 
placard, like a kettle-holder, bearing the in- 
scription in his own small text : — 



Errands gone 

On with fi 

Delity By 

Ladies and Gentlemen 

I remain 

Your humble Serv 4 : 

Silas Wegg. 



He had not only settled it with himself in course 
of time, that he was errand-goer by appoint- 
ment to the house at the corner (though he 
received such commissions not half a dozen 
times in a year, and then only as some servant's 
deputy), but also that he was one of the house's 
retainers and owed vassalage to it and was 
bound to leal and loyal interest in it. For this 
reason, he always spoke of it as "Our House," 
and, though his knowledge of its affairs was 
mostly speculative and all wrong, claimed to 
be in its confidence. On similar grounds he 
never beheld an inmate at any one of its 
windows but he touched his hat. Yet, he 
knew so little about the inmates that he gave 
them names of his own invention; as "Miss 
Elizabeth," "Master George," "Aunt Jane," 
"Uncle Parker" — having no authority what- 
ever for any such designations, but particularly 
the last — to which, as a natural consequence, 
he stuck with great obstinacy. 
Over the house itself, he exercised the same 



imaginary power as over its inhabitants and 
their affairs. He had never been in it, the 
length of a piece of fat black water-pipe which 
trailed itself over the area-door into a damp 
stone passage, and had rather the air of a 
leech on the house that had "taken" wonder- 
fully; but this was no impediment to his 
arranging it according to a plan of his own. 
It was a great dingy house with a quantity of 
dim side window and blank back premises, 
and it cost his mind a world of trouble so to , 
lay it out as to account for everything in its 
external appearance. But, this once done, was 
quite satisfactory, and he rested persuaded 
that he knew his way about the house blind- 
fold: from the barred garrets in the high 
roof, to the two iron extinguishers before the 
main door — which seemed to request all 
lively visitors to have the kindness to put 
themselves out, before entering. 

Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg's was 
the hardest little stall of all the sterile little 
stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache to 
look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at 
his oranges, the tooth-ache to look at his nuts. 
Of the latter commodity he had always a grim 
little heap, on which lay a little wooden meas- 
ure which had no discernible inside, and was 
considered to represent the penn'orth appointed 
by Magna Charta. Whether from too much 
east wind or no — it was an easterly corner — 
the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all 
as dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty 
man, and a close-grained, with a face carved 
out of very hard material, that had just as 
much play of expression as a watchman's 
rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks oc- 
curred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to 
say, he was so wooden a man that he seemed 
to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and 
rather suggested to the fanciful observer, that 
he might be expected — if his development 
received no untimely check — to be completely 
set up with a pair of wooden legs in about six 
months. 

Mr. Wegg was an observant person, or, as 
he himself said, "took a powerful sight of 
notice." He saluted all his regular passers-by 
every day, as he sat on his stool backed up 
by the lamp-post; and on the adaptable char- 
acter of these salutes he greatly plumed him- 
self. Thus, to the rector, he addressed a bow, 
compounded of lay deference, and a slight 
touch of the shady preliminary meditation at 
church; to the doctor, a confidential bow, as 
to a gentleman whose acquaintance with his 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 



443 



inside he begged respectfully to acknowledge; 
before the Quality he delighted to abase him- 
self; and for Uncle Parker, who was in the 
army (at least, so he had settled it), he put his 
open hand to the side of his hat, in a military 
manner which that angry-eyed, buttoned-up, 
inflammatory-faced old gentleman appeared 
but imperfectly to appreciate. 

The only article in which Silas dealt that 
was not hard was gingerbread. On a certain 
day, some wretched infant having purchased 
the damp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out of 
condition), and the adhesive bird-cage, which 
had been exposed for the day's sale, he had 
taken a tin box from under his stool to pro- 
duce a relay of those dreadful specimens, and 
was going to look in at the lid, when he said 
to himself, pausing: "Oh! Here you are 
again !" 

The words referred to a broad, round- 
shouldered, one-sided old fellow in mourning, 
coming comically ambling toward the corner, 
dressed in a pea overcoat, and carrying a large 
stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick leather 
gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger's. Both 
as to his dress and to himself, he was of 
an overlapping, rhinoceros build, with folds in 
his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, 
and his lips, and his ears; but with bright, 
eager, childishly-inquiring, gray eyes, under his 
ragged eyebrows and broad-brimmed hat. A 
very odd-looking old fellow altogether. 

"Here you are again," repeated Mr. Wegg, 
musing. "And what are you now? Are you 
in the Funns, or where are you? Have you 
lately come to settle in this neighbourhood, or 
do you own to another neighbourhood? Are 
you in independent circumstances, or is it 
wasting the motions of a bow on you ? Come ! 
I'll speculate! I'll invest a bow in you." 

Which Mr. Wegg, having replaced his tin 
box, accordingly did, as he rose to bait his 
gingerbread-trap for some other devoted in- 
fant. The salute was acknowledged with : 

"Morning, sir! Morning! Morning!" 

("Calls me Sir!" said Mr. Wegg, to himself. 
"He won't answer. A bow gone!") 

"Morning, morning, morning!" 

"Appears to be rather a 'arty old cock, 
too," said Mr. Wegg, as before. "Good 
morning to you, sir." 

"Do you remember me, then?" asked his 
new acquaintance, stopping in his amble, one- 
sided, before the stall, and speaking in a 
pouncing way, though with great good-humour. 

"I have noticed you go past our house, sir, 



several times in the course of the last week 
or so." 

"Our house," repeated the other. "Mean- 
ing—?" 

"Yes," said Mr. Wegg, nodding, as the 
other pointed the clumsy forefinger of his right 
glove at the corner house. 

"Oh! Now, what," pursued the old fellow, 
in an inquisitive manner, carrying his knotted 
stick in his left arm as if it were a baby, "what 
do they allow you now?" 

"It's job work that I do for our house," 
returned Silas, dryly, and with reticence; "it's 
not yet brought to an exact allowance." 

"Oh! It's not yet brought to an exact 
allowance? No! It's not yet brought to an 
exact allowance. Oh ! — Morning, morning, 
morning!" 

"Appears to be rather a cracked old cock," 
thought Silas, qualifying his former good 
opinion, as the other ambled off. But in a 
moment he was back again with the question : 

"How did you get your wooden leg?" 

Mr. Wegg replied (tartly to this personal 
inquiry), "In an accident." 

"Do you like it?" 

"Well! I haven't got to keep it warm," 
Mr. Wegg made answer, in a sort of despera- 
tion occasioned by the singularity of the 
question. 

"He hasn't," repeated the other to his 
knotted stick, as he gave it a hug; "he hasn't 
got — ha ! — ha ! — to keep it warm ! Did 
you ever hear of the name of Boffin?" 

"No," said Mr. Wegg, who was growing 
restive under this examination. "I never did 
hear of the name of Boffin." 

"Do you like it?" 

"Why, no," retorted Mr. Wegg, again ap- 
proaching desperation; "I can't say I do." 

"Why don't you like it?" 

"I don't know why I don't," retorted Mr. 
Wegg, approaching frenzy, "but I don't at 
all." 

"Now, I'll tell you something that'll make 
you sorry for that," said the stranger, smiling. 
"My name's Boffin." 

"I can't help it!" returned Mr. Wegg, 
implying in his manner the offensive addition, 
"and if I could, I wouldn't." 

"But there's another chance for you," said 
Mr. Boffin, smiling still. "Do you like the 
name of Nicodemus? Think it over. Nick or 
Noddy." 

"It is not, sir," Mr. Wegg rejoined, as he 
sat down on his stool, with an air of gentle 



444 



CHARLES DICKENS 



resignation, combined with melancholy can- 
dour; "it is not a name as 1 could wish any 
one that I had a respect for to call me by; 
but there may be persons that would not view 
it with the same objections. 1 don't know 
why," Mr. Wegg added, anticipating another 
question. 

"Noddy Boffin," said that gentleman. 
"Noddy. That's my name. Noddy — or 
Nick Boffin. What's your name?" 

"Silas Wegg. 1 don't," said Mr. Wegg, 
bestirring himself to take the same precaution 
as before; "1 don't know why Silas, and I 
don't know why Wegg." 

"Now, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, hugging his 
stick closer, "I want to make a sort of oiler 
to you. Do you remember when you first see 
me?" 

The wooden Wegg looked at him with a 
meditative eye, and also with B softened air, 
as descrying possibility of profit. "Let me 
think. 1 ain't quite sure, and yet 1 generally 
take a powerful sight of notice, too. Was it 
on B Monday morning, when the butcher boy 
had been to our house for orders, and bought 
a ballad of me, which, being unacquainted 
with the tune, I run it over to him?" 

"Right. Wegg, right! But he bought more 
than one." 

"Yes, to be sure, sir; he bought several; 
and wishing to lay out his money to the best, 
he took my opinion to guide his choice, and 
we went over the collection together. To be 
sure we did. Here was him as it might be, 
and here was myself as it might be, and there 
was you, Mr. Boffin, as you identically are, 
with your self-same stick under your very 
same arm, and your very same back toward 
us. To — be— sure!" added Mr. Wegg, 
looking a little round Mr. Boffin, to take him 
in the rear, and identify this last extraordinary 
coincidence, "Your wery, selfsame back!" 

"What do you think 1 was doing, Wegg?" 

"I should judge, sir, that you might be 
glancing Your eye down the street." 

"No. Wegg. 1 was a listening." 

"Was you, indeed?" said Mr. Wegg, 
dubiously. 

"Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg. because 
you was singing to the butcher; and you 
wouldn't sing secrets to a butcher in the street, 
you know." 

"It never happened that I did so yet, to the 
best of my remembrance," said Mr. Wegg, 
cautiously. "Hut I might do it. A man can't 
say what he might wish to do some day or 



another." (This, not to release any little 
adYantage he might derive from Mr. Boffin's 
avowal.) 

"Well," repeated Boffin, "I was a listening 
to you and to him. And what do you — you 
haven't got another stool, have you? I'm 
rather thick in my breath." 

"1 haven't got another, but you're welcome 
to this," said Wegg, resigning it. "It's a treat 
to me to stand." 

"l.ard!" exclaimed Mr. Boffin, in a tone of 
great enjoyment, as he settled himself down, 
still nursing his stick like a baby, "it's a 
pleasant place, this! And then to be shut in 
on each side, with these ballads, like so many 
book-leaf blinkers! Why, it's delightful!" 

"If I am not mistaken, sir," Mr. Wegg 
delicately hinted, resting a hand on his stall, 
and bending over the discursive Boffin, "you 
alluded to some offer or another that was in 
your mind?" 

"I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming 
to it! I was going to say that when 1 listened 
that morning. 1 listened with hadmiration 
amounting to hawe. I thought to myself, 
'Here's a man with a wooden leg — a literary 
man with — '" 

"N — not exactly so, sir." said Mr. Wegg. 

"Why, you know every one of these songs 
by name and by tune, and if you want to read 
or to sing any one on 'em off straight, you've 
only to whip on your spectacles and do it!" 
cried Mr. Boffin. "I see you at it!" 

"Well, sir," returned Mr. Wegg, with a 
conscious inclination of the head; -"we'll say 
literary, then." 

"'A literary man — with a wooden leg — 
and all Print is open to him!" That's what I 
thought to myself, that morning," pursued Mr. 
Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped 
by the clothes-horse, as large an arc as his 
right arm could make; '"all Print is open to 
him !' And it is, ain't it?" 

"Why, truly, sir." Mr. Wegg admitted, with 
modesty; "1 believe you couldn't show me 
the piece of English print, that I wouldn't be 
equal to collaring and throwing." 

"On the spot?" said Mr. Boffin. 

"On the spot." 

"I know'd it! Then consider this. Here 
am 1. a man without a wooden leg, and yet 
all print is shut to me." 

"Indeed, sir?" Mr. Wegg returned with in- 
creasing self-complacency. " Education neg- 
lected?" 

"Neg-lected!" repeated boffin, with 



OUR MUTUAL FRIFND 



445 



emphasis. "That ain't no word for it. I 
don't mean to say but what if you showed me 
a B, I could so far give you change for it, as 
to answer ' Boffin.' " 

"Come, come, sir," said Mr. Wegg, throw- 
ing in a little encouragement, "that's some- 
thing, too." 

"It's something," answered Mr. Boffin, "but 
I'll take my oath it ain't much." 

"Perhaps it's not as much as could be 
wished by an inquiring mind, sir," Mr. Wegg, 
admitted. 

"Now, look here. I'm retired from busi- 
ness. Me and Mrs. Boffin — Ilenerietly Boffin 
— which her father's name was Henery, and 
her mother's name was Hetty, and so you get 
it — we live on a compittancc, under the will 
of a deceased governor." 

"Gentleman dead, sir?" 

"Man alive, don't I tell you? A deceased 
governor? Now, it's too late for me to begin 
shovelling and sifting at alphaheds and gram- 
mar-books. I'm getting to be an old bird, 
and 1 want to take it easy. But I want some 
reading — some fine bold reading, some 
splendid book in a gorging Lord-Mayor's- 
Show of wollumes" (probably meaning gor- 
geous, but misled by association of ideas) ; 
"as'll reach right down your pint of view, and 
take time to go by you. How can I get that 
reading, Wegg? By," tapping him on the 
breast with the head of his thick stick, "pay- 
ing a man truly qualified to do it, so much an 
hour (say twopence) to come and do it." 

"Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure," said 
Wegg, beginning to regard himself in quite 
a new light. "Hem! This is the offer you 
mentioned, sir?" 

"Yes. Do you like it?" 

"I am considering of it, Mr. Boffin." 

"I don't," said Boffin, in a free handed 
manner, "want to tic a literary man — with 
a wooden leg — down too tight. A half- 
penny an hour shan't part us. The hours are 
your own to choose, after you've done for the 
day with your house here. I live over Maiden - 
Lane way — out Holloway direction — and 
you've only got to go East-and-by-North when 
you've finished here, and you're there. Two- 
pence halfpenny an hour," said Boffin, taking 
B piece of chalk from his pocket and getting off 
the stool to work the sum on the top of it in 
his own way; "two long'uns and a short'un — 
twopence halfpenny; two short'uns is a long'un' 
and two two long'uns is four long'uns — making 
five long'uns; six nights a week at five long'uns 



a night," scoring them all down separately, 
"and you mount up to thirty long'uns. A 
round'un ! Half a crown !" 

Pointing to this result as a large and sal is 
factory one, Mr. Boffin smeared it out witli his 
moistened glove, and sat down on the remains. 

"Half a crown," said Wegg, meditating, 
"Yes. (It ain't much, sir.) Half a crown." 

"Per week, you know." 

"Per week. Yes. As to the amount of 
strain upon the intellect now. Was you tliink- 
ing at all of poetry?" Mr. Wegg inquired, 
musing. 

"Would it come dearer?" Mr. Boffin asked. 

"It would come dearer," Mr. Wegg returned. 
"For when a person comes to grind off poetry 
night after night, it is but right he should expect 
to be paid for its weakening effect on his mind." 

"To tell you the truth, Wegg," said Boffin, 
"I wasn't thinking of poetry, except in so fur 
as this: — If you was to happen now and 
then to feel yourself in the mind to tip me and 
Mrs. Boffin one of your ballads, why then we 
should drop into poetry." 

"I follow you, sir," said Wegg. "But not 
being a regular musical professional, I should be 
loath to engage myself lor that; and therefore 
when 1 dropped into poetry, 1 should ask to be 
considered so fur, in the light of a friend." 

At this, Mr. Boffin's eyes sparkled, and he 
.shook Silas earnestly by the hand; protesting 
that it was more than he could have asked, and 
that he took it very kindly indeed. 

"What do you think of the terms, Wegg?" 
Mr. Boffin then demanded, with unconcealed 
anxiety. 

Silas, who had stimulated this anxiety by his 
hard reserve of manner, and who had begun 
to understand his man very well, replied with 
an air; as if he were saying something extraor- 
dinarily generous and great : 

"Mr. Boffin, I never bargain." 

"So I should have thought of you!" said Mr. 
Boffin, admiringly. 

"No, sir. 1 never did 'aggie and I never will 
'aggie. Consequently I meet you at once, free 
and fair, with — Done, for double the money ! " 

Mr. Boffin seemed a little unprepared for 
this conclusion, but assented with the remark, 
"You know better what it ought to be than I 
do, Wegg," and again shook hands with him 
upon it. 

"Could you begin to-night, Wegg?" he then 
demanded. 

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Wegg, careful to leave 
all the eagerness to him. "I see no difficulty 



446 



CHARLES DICKENS 



if you wish it. You are provided with the 
needful implement — a book, sir?" 

"Bought him at a sale," said Mr. Boffin. 
" Eight wollumes. Red and gold. Purple rib- 
bon in every wollume, to keep the place where 
you leave off. Do you know him?" 

"The book's name, sir?" inquired Silas. 

"I thought you might have know'd him with- 
out it," said Mr. Boffin, slightly disappointed. 
"His name is Decline -And-Fall-Off The- 
Rooshan-Empire." (Mr. Boffin went over 
these stones slowly and with much caution.) 

"Ay, indeed!" said Mr. Wegg, nodding his 
head with an air of friendly recognition. 

"You know him, Wegg? " 

"I haven't been not to say right slap through 
him, very lately," Mr. Wegg made answer, 
"having been otherways employed, Mr. Boffin. 
But know him? Old familiar declining and 
falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir! Ever 
since I was not so high as your stick. Ever 
since my eldest brother left our cottage to enlist 
into the army. On which occasion, as the 
ballad that was made about it describes: 

" Beside that cottage door, Mr. Boffin, 
A girl was on her knees ; 
She held aloft a snowy scarf, Sir, 

Which (my eldest brother noticed) fluttered in 
the breeze. 
She breathed a prayer for him, Mr. Boffin; 

A prayer he could not hear. 
And my eldest brother lean'd upon his sword, 
Mr. Boffin, 
And wiped away a tear." 

Much impressed by this family circumstance, 
and also by the friendly disposition of Mr. 
Wegg, as exemplified in his so soon dropping 
into poetry, Mr. Boffin again shook hands with 
that ligneous sharper, and besought him to 
name his hour. Mr. Wegg named eight. 

"Where I live," said Mr. Boffin, "is called 
The Bower. Boffin's Bower is the name Mrs. 
Boffin christened it when we come into it as a 
property. If you should meet with anybody 
that don't know it by that name (which hardly 
anybody does), when you've got nigh upon 
about a odd mile, or say and a quarter if you 
like, up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, ask for 
Harmony Jail, and you'll be put right. I shall 
expect you, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, clapping 
him on the shoulder with the greatest en- 
thusiasm, "most joyfully. I shall have no 
peace or patience till you come. Print is now 
opening ahead of me. This night, a literary 
man — with a wooden leg — " he bestowed an 
admiring look upon that decoration, as if 



it greatly enhanced the relish of Mr. Wegg's 
attainments — "will begin to lead me a new 
life ! My fist again, Wegg. Morning, morn- 
ing, morning!" 

Left alone at his stall as the other ambled 
off, Mr. Wegg subsided into his screen, pro- 
duced a small pocket-handkerchief of a peni- 
tentially-scrubbing character, and took him- 
self by the nose with a thoughtful aspect. Also, 
while he still grasped that feature, he directed 
several thoughtful looks down the street, after 
the retiring figure of Mr. Boffin. But, pro- 
found gravity sat enthroned on Wegg's counte- 
nance. For, while he considered within him- 
self that this was an old fellow of rare simplicity, 
that this was an opportunity to be improved, 
and that here might be money to be got beyond 
present calculation, still he compromised him- 
self by no admission that his new engagement 
was at all out of his way, or involved the least 
element of the ridiculous. Mr. Wegg would 
even have picked a handsome quarrel with any 
one who should have challenged his deep ac- 
quaintance with those aforesaid eight volumes 
of Decline and Fall. His gravity was unusual, 
portentous, and immeasurable, not because he 
admitted any doubt of himself, but because he 
perceived it necessary to forestall any doubt of 
himself in others. And herein he ranged with 
that very numerous class of impostors, who are 
quite as determined to keep up appearances to 
themselves, as to their neighbours. 

A certain loftiness, likewise, took possession 
of Mr. Wegg; a condescending sense of being 
in request as an official expounder otmysteries. 
It did not move him to commercial greatness, 
but rather to littleness, insomuch that if it had 
been within the possibilities of things for the 
wooden measure to hold fewer nuts than usual, 
it would have done so that day. But, when 
night came, and with her veiled eyes beheld 
him stumping toward Boffin's Bower, he was 
elated too. 

The Bower was as difficult to find as Fair 
Rosamond's without the clew. Mr. Wegg, 
having reached the quarter indicated, inquired 
for the Bower half a dozen times, without the 
least success, until he remembered to ask for 
Harmony Jail. This occasioned a quick change 
in the spirit of a hoarse gentleman and a donkey, 
whom he had much perplexed. 

"Why, yer mean Old Harmon's, do yer?" 
said the hoarse gentleman, who was driving his 
donkey in a truck, with a carrot for a whip. 
"Why didn't yer niver say so? Eddard and 
me is a goin' by him t Jump in." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 



447 



Mr. Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentle- 
man invited his attention to the third person 
in company, thus: 

"Now, you look at Eddard's ears. What was 
it as you named, agin? Whisper." 

Mr. Wegg whispered, "Boffin's Bower." 

"Eddard ! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away 
to Boffin's Bower!" 

Edward, with his ears lying back, remained 
immovable. 

"Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut 
away to Old Harmon's." 

Edward instantly pricked up his ears to their 
utmost, and rattled off at such a pace that Mr. 
Wegg's conversation was jolted out of him in 
a most dislocated state. 

"Was-it-Ev-verajail?" asked Mr. Wegg, 
holding on. 

"Not a proper jail, wot you and me would 
get committed to," returned his escort; "they 
giv' it the name on accounts of Old Harmon 
living solitary there." 

"And-why-did-they-callitharm-Ony?" asked 
Wegg. 

"On accounts of his never agreeing with 
nobody. Like a speeches of chaff. Harmon's 
Jail; Harmony Jail. Working it round like." 

"Doyouknow-Mist-Erboff-in?" asked Wegg. 

"I should think so! Everybody do about 
here. Eddard knows him. (Keep yer hi on 
his ears.) Noddy Boffin, Eddard!" 

The effect of the name was so very alarming, 
in respect of causing a temporary disappearance 
of Edward's head, casting his hind hoofs in the 
air, greatly accelerating the pace and increasing 
the jolting, that Mr. Wegg was fain to devote 
his attention exclusively to holding on, and to 
relinquish his desire of ascertaining whether 
this homage to Boffin was to be considered com- 
plimentary or the reverse. 

Presently, Edward stopped at a gateway, 
and Wegg discreetly lost no time in slipping out 
at the back of the truck. The moment he was 
landed, his late driver with a wave of the carrot, 
said "Supper, Eddard ! " and he, the hind hoofs, 
the truck, and Edward, all seemed to fly into 
the air together, in a kind of apotheosis. 

Pushing the gate, which stood ajar, Wegg 
looked into an enclosed space where certain 
tall dark mounds rose high against the sky, 
and where the pathway to the Bower was in- 
dicated, as the moonlight showed, between 
two lines of broken crockery set in ashes. A 
white figure advancing along this path, proved 
to be nothing more ghostly than Mr. Boffin, 
easily attired for the pursuit of knowledge, in 



an undress garment of short white smock- 
frock. Having received his literary friend 
with great cordiality, he conducted him to the 
interior of the Bower, and there presented him 
to Mrs. Boffin, a stout lady, of a rubicund and 
cheerful aspect, dressed (to Mr. Wegg's con- 
sternation) in a low evening-dress of sable 
satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers. 

"Mrs. Boffin, Wegg," said Boffin, "is a 
highflyer at Fashion. And her make is such, 
that she does it credit. As to myself, I ain't 
yet as Fash'nable as I may come to be. Hen- 
erietty, old lady, this is the gentleman that's 
a going to decline and fall off the Rooshan 
Empire." 

"And I am sure I hope it'll do you both 
good," said Mrs. Boffin. 

It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and 
furnished more like a luxurious amateur tap- 
room than anything else within the ken of 
Silas Wegg. There were two wooden settles 
by the fire, one on either side of it, with a 
corresponding table before each. On one of 
these tables, the eight volumes were ranged flat, 
in a row, like a galvanic battery; on the other, 
certain squat case-bottles, of inviting appear- 
ance, seemed to stand on tiptoe to exchange 
glances with Mr. Wegg over a front row of 
tumblers and a basin of white sugar. On the 
hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, a cat 
reposed. Facing the fire between the settles. 
a sofa, a footstool, and a little table, formed 
a centrepiece, devoted to Mrs. Boffin. They 
were garish in taste and colour, but were ex- 
pensive articles of drawing-room furniture, that 
had a very odd look beside the settles and 
the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. 
There was a flowery carpet on the floor; but, 
instead of reaching to the fireside, its glowing 
vegetation stopped short at Mrs. Boffin's foot- 
stool, and gave place to a region of sand and 
sawdust. Mr. Wegg also noticed with admir- 
ing eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed 
such hollow ornamentation as stuffed birds and 
waxen fruits under glass-shades, there were, 
in the territory where vegetation ceased, com- 
pensatory shelves on which the best part of a 
large pie, and likewise of a cold joint, were 
plainly discernible among other solids. The 
room itself was large, though low, and the 
heavy frames of its old-fashioned windows, 
and the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, 
seemed to indicate that it had once been a house 
of some mark, standing alone in the country. 

"Do you like it, Wegg?" asked Mr. Boffin, 
in his pouncing manner. 



448 



CHARLES DICKENS 



'• I admire it greatly, sir," said Wegg. " Pe- 
culiar comfort at this fireside, sir." 

"Do you understand it, Wegg?" 

"Why, in ■ genera] way, sir," Mr. Wegg 
was beginning slowly and knowingly, with his 
head stuck on one side, as evasive people do 
begin, when the other cut him short: 

"You don't understand it, Wegg, and I'll 
explain it. These arrangements is made by 
mutual consent between Mrs. Boffin and me. 
Mrs. Boffin, as I've mentioned, is a high- 
tlyer at Fashion; at present I'm not. I don't 
go higher than comfort, and comfort of the sort 
that I'm equal to the enjoyment of. Well then. 
Where would be the good of Mrs. Boffin and me 
quarrelling over it ? We never did quarrel 
before we come into Boffin's bower as a prop- 
er! v; why quarrel when we have come into 
Boffin's bower as a property? So Mrs. 
Boffin, she keeps up her pari of the room 
in her way; 1 keep up my part of the room in 
mine. In consequence of which we have at 
once, Sociability v l should go melancholy mad 
without Mrs Boffin), Fashion, and Comfort If 
1 get by degrees to be a highflyer at Fashion, 
then Mrs. boffin will by degrees come for'arder. 
If Mrs. Boffin should ever be less of a dab at 
Fashion than she is at the present time, then 
Mrs. Boffin's carpet would go back'arder. If 
we should both continny as we are, why then 
kt • we are, and give us a kiss, old lady." 

Mrs. Boffin, who, perpetually smiling, had ap- 
proached and drawn her plump arm through 
her lord's, most willingly complied. Fashion, 
in the form of her black velvet hat and feathers, 
tried to prevent it; but got deservedly crushed 
in the endeavour. 

"So now, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, wiping his 
mouth with an air of much refreshment, •"you 
begin to know us as we are. This is a charming 
spot, is the bower, but you must get to appre- 
ciate it by degrees. It's a spot to find out 
the merits of, little by little, and a new 'un every 
d.w There's a serpentining walk up each of 
the mounds, that gives you the yard and neigh- 
bourhood changing every moment. When you 
get to the top, there's a view of the neighbouring 
premises, not to be surpassed. The premises 
of Mrs. Boffin's late father (Canine Provision 
Trade), you look down into, as if they was your 
own. And the top of the High Mound is 
crowned with a lattice work Arbor, in which, 
if you don't read out loud many a book in the 
summer, ay, and as a friend, drop many a time 
into [wiry too, it shan't be my fault. Now 
what'll you read on?" 



"Thank you, sir," returned Wegg, as if 
there were nothing new in his reading at all. 
"1 generally do it on gin and water." 

"Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg?" 
asked Mr. Boffin, with innocent eagerness. 

"N — no, sir," replied Wegg, coolly, "I 
should hardly describe it so, sir. I should sav, 
mellers it. Mellers it, is the word I should 

employ, Mr. Boffin." 

His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace 
with the delighted expectations of his victim. 

The visions rising before his mercenary mind, 
of the many ways in which this connection was 
to be turned to account, never obscured the 
foremost idea natural to a dull, over reaching, 
man, that he must not make himself too 
cheap. 

Mrs. Boffin's Fashion, as a less inexorable 
deity than the idol usually worshipped under 
that name, did not forbid her mixing for her 
literary guest, or asking if he found the result 
to his liking. On his returning a gracious 
answer and taking his place at the literary 
settle, Mr. Boffin began to compose himself as 
a listener at the opposite settle, with exultant 
eyes. 

"Sorry to deprive you of a pipe, Wegg," lie 
said, filling his own. "but you can't do both 
together. Oh! and another thing 1 forgot to 
name ! When you come here of an evening, 
and look round you, and notice anything on a 
shelf that happens to catch your fancy, mention 
it." 

Wegg, who had been going to put on his 
spectacles, immediately laid them down, with 

the sprightly observation: 

"You read my thoughts, sir. A' my eves 
deceive me. or is that object up there — a pie? 
It can't be a pie." 

•"Yes, it's a pie. Wegg." replied Mr. Boffin, 
with a glance of some little discomfiture at the 
Decline and Fall. 

"flat* I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a 
apple pie, sir?" asked Wegg. 

"It's a veal and ham pie," said Mr. Boffin. 

"Is it indeed, sir? And it would be hard, 
sir, to name the pie that is a better pie than a 
weal and hammer," said Mr. Wegg, nodding his 
head emotionally. 

" Have some, Wegg?" 

"Thank you, Mr. Boffin, I think I will, 
at your invitation. 1 wouldn't at any other 
party's, at the present juncture; but at yours, 
sir! — And meaty jelly too, especially when a 
little salt, which is the case where there's ham. 
is mellering to the organ, is very mellering to 






OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 



449 



the organ." Mr. Wegg did not say what organ, 
but spoke with a cheerful generality. 

So the pie was brought down, and the worthy 
Mr. Both n exercised his patience until Wegg, in 
the exercise of his knife and fork, had finished 
the dish: only profiting by the opportunity to 
inform Wegg that "although it was not strictly 
Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder 
thus exposed to view, he (Mr. Bolhn) considered 
it hospitable; for the reason, that instead of 
saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, 
to a visitor, ' There are such and such edibles 
down stairs; will you have anything up?' 
you took the bold practical course of say- 
ing, 'Cast your eye along the shelves, and, if 
you see anything you like there, have it 
down.'" 

And now, Mr. Wegg at length pushed away 
his plate and put on his spectacles, and Mr. 
Boffin lighted his pipe and looked with beaming 
eyes into the opening world before him, and 
Mrs. Boffin reclined in a fashionable manner 
on her sofa: as one who would be part of the 
audience if she found she could, and would go 
to sleep if she found she couldn't. 

"Hem!" began Wegg. "This, Mr. Boffin 
and Lady, is the first chapter of the first wolhune 
of the Decline and Fall of — " here he looked 
hard at the book, and stopped. 
"What's the matter, Wegg?" 
"Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, 
sir," said Wegg with an air of insinuating 
frankness (having first again looked hard at the 
book), "that you made a little mistake this 
morning, which 1 had meant to set you right in, 
only something put it out of my head. I think 
you said Rooshan Empire, sir?" 
"It is Rooshan; ain't it, Wegg?" 
"No, sir. Roman. Roman." 
"What's the difference, Wegg?" 
"The difference, sir?" Mr. Wegg was fal- 
tering and in danger of breaking down, when 
a bright thought flashed upon him. "The 
difference, sir? There you place me in a diffi- 
culty, Mr. Bolhn. Suffice it to observe, that 
the difference is best postponed to some other 
occasion when Mrs. Boffin does not honour 
us with her company. In Mrs. Boffin's pres- 
ence, sir, we had better drop it." 

Mr. Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage 
with quite a chivalrous air, and not only that, 
but by dint of repeating with a manly delicacy, 
"In Mrs. Bofhn's presence, sir, we had better 
drop it!" turned the disadvantage on Boffin, 
who felt that he had committed himself in a very 
painful manner. 



Then, Mr. Wegg, in a dry, unflinching way, 
(iihicd on his task; going straight across 
country at everything that came before him; 
taking all the hard words, biographical and 
geographical; gelling rather shaken by Ha- 
drian, Trajan, and the Antonines; stumbling at 

Polybius (pronounced Polly Beeious, and sup 

posed by Mr. Boffin to be a Roman virgin, and 
by Mrs. Boffin to be responsible for that neces- 
sity of dropping it) ; heavily unseated by Titus 
Antoninus Pins; up again and galloping 
smoothly with Augustus; finally, getting over 
the ground well with Commodus: who, under 
the appellation of Commodious, was held by 
Mr. Boffin to have been quite unworthy of his 
English origin, and "not to have acted up to his 
name" in his government of the Roman people. 
With the death of this personage, Mr. Wegg 
terminated his first reading; long before which 
consummation several total eclipses of Mrs. 
Boffin's candle behind her black velvet disc, 
would have been very alarming, but for being 
regularly accompanied by a potent smell of 
burnt pens when her feathers took lire, 
which acted as a restorative and woke 
her. Mr. Wegg, having read on by rote 
and attached as few ideas as possible to the 
text, came out of the encounter fresh; but 
Mr. Bolhn, who had soon laid down his 
unfinished pipe, and had ever since sat 
intently staring with his eyes and mind at 
the confounding enormities of the Romans, 
was so severely punished that he could hardly 
wish his literary friend good-night, and articu- 
late "To-morrow." 

"Commodious," gasped Mr. Boffin, staring 
at the moon, after letting Wegg out at the gate 
and fastening it: "Commodious fights in that 
wild-beast-show, seven hundred and thirty-live 
times, in one character only ! As if that wasn't 
stunning enough, a hundred lions is turned into 
the same wild-beast-show all at once! As if 
that wasn't stunning enough, Commodious, in 
another character, kills 'em all off in a hun- 
dred goes! As if that wasn't stunning enough, 
Vittleus (and well named too) eats six millions' 
worth, English money, in seven months! 
Wegg takes it easy, but upon-my-soul to a old 
bird like myself these are scarcrs. And even 
now that Commodious is strangled, 1 don't 
see a way to our bettering ourselves." Mr. 
Boffin added as he turned his pensive steps 
toward the Bower and shook his head, "I 
didn't think this morning there was half so 
many Scarers in Print. But I'm in for it 



45° 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 

(1818-1894) 

GESAR: A SKETCH 

CHAPTER XIII 

The consulship of Caesar was the last chance 
for the Roman aristocracy. He was not a 

revolutionist. Revolutions are the last des- 
perate remedy when all else has failed. They 
may create as many evils as they cure, and wise 
men always hate them. Hut if revolution was to 
he escaped, reform was inevitable, and it was 
lor the Senate to choose between the alternatives. 
Could the noble lords have known, then, in 
that their day, the things that belonged to their 
peace could they have forgotten their fish- 
ponds and their game preserves, and have 
remembered that, as the rulers of the civilised 
world, they had duties which the eternal order 
of nature would exact at their hands, the 
shaken constitution might have regained its 
Stability, and the forms and even the reality 
of the Republic might have continued for 
another century. It was not to be. Had the 
Senate been capable of using the opportunity, 
they would long before have undertaken a 
reformation for themselves. Even had their 
eyes been opened, there were disintegrating 
forces at work which the highest political wis- 
dom could do no more than arrest; and little 
good is really effected by prolonging artificially 
the lives of either constitutions or individuals 
beyond their natural period. From the time 
when Rome became an Empire, mistress of 
provinces to which she was unable to extend her 
own liberties, the days of her self government 
were numbered. A homogeneous and vigorous 
people may manage their own affairs under a 
popular constitution so long as their personal 
characters remain undegenerate. Parliaments 
and Senates may represent the general will of 
the community, and may pass laws and ad- 
minister them as public sentiment approves. 
But such bodies can preside successfully only 
among subjects who are directly represented in 
them. They are too ignorant, too selfish, too 
divided, to govern others; and Imperial as- 
pirations draw after them, by obvious neces- 
sity, an Imperial rule. Ca'sar may have known 
this in his heart, yet the most far seeing states- 
man will not so trust his own misgivings as 
to refuse to hope for the regeneration of the 
institutions into which he is born. He will 
determine that justice shall be clone. Justice 



is the essence of government, and without jus- 
tiee all forms, democratic or monarchic, are 
tyrannies alike. But he will work, with the ex- 
isting methods till the inadequacy of them has 
been proved beyond dispute. Constitutions 
are never overthrown till they have pronounced 
sentence on themselves. 

Caesar accordingly commenced office by an 
endeavour to conciliate. The army and the 
moneyed interests, represented by Pompey 
and CrasSUS, were already with him; and he 
used his endeavours, as has been seen, to gain 
Cicero, who might bring with him such part of 
the landed aristocracy as were not hopelessly 
incorrigible. With Cicero he but partially suc- 
ceeded. The great orator solved the problem 
of the situation by going away into the country 
and remaining there for the greater part of the 
year, and Caesar had to do without an assistance 
which, in the speaking department, would have 
been invaluable to him. His first step was to 
order the publication of the "Acta Diurna," 
a daily journal of the doings of the Senate. 
The light of day being thrown in upon that 
august body might prevent honourable mem- 
bers from laving hands on each other as they 
had lately done, and might enable the people 
to know what was going on among them — 
on a better authority than rumour. He then 
introduced his Agrarian law, the rough draft 
of which had been already discussed, and had 
been supported by Cicero in the preceding year. 
Had he meant to be defiant, like the Gracchi, 
he might have offered it at once to the people. 
Instead of doing SO, he laid it before fhe Senate, 
inviting them to amend his suggestions, and 
promising any reasonable concessions if they 
would cooperate. No wrong was to be done 
to any existing occupiers. No right of property 
was to be violated which was any real right at 
all. Large tracts in Campania which belonged 
to the State were now held on the usual easy 
terms by great landed patricians. These 
Csesar proposed to buy out, and to settle on 
the ground twenty thousand of Pompey's 
veterans. There was money enough and to 
spare in the treasury, which they had themselves 
brought home. Out of the large funds which 
would still remain, land might be purchased 
in other parts of Italy for the rest, and for a few 
thousand of the unemployed population which 
was crowded into Rome. The measure in it- 
self was admitted to be a moderate one. 
Every pains had been taken to spare the in- 
terests and to avoid hurting the susceptibili- 
ties of the aristocrats. But, as Cicero said, the 



CESAR: A SKETCH 



45i 



very name of an Agrarian law was intolerable 
to them. It meant in the end spoliation and 
division of property, and the first step would 
bring others after it. The public lands they had 
shared conveniently among themselves from 
immemorial time. The public treasure was 
their treasure, to be laid out as they might think, 
proper. Cato headed the opposition. He 
stormed for an entire day, and was so violent 
that Caesar threatened him with arrest. The 
Senate groaned and foamed; no progress was 
made or was likely to be made; and Caesar, as 
much in earnest as they were, had to tell them 
that if they would not help him, he must appeal 
to the assembly. "I invited you to revise the 
law," he said; "I was willing that if any clause 
displeased you it should be expunged. You 
will not touch it. Well, then, the people must 
decide." 

The Senate had made up their minds to 
fight the battle. If Caesar went to the assembly, 
Bibulus, their second consul, might stop the 
proceedings. If this seemed too extreme a 
step, custom provided other impediments, to 
which recourse might be had. Bibulus might 
survey the heavens, watch the birds, or the 
clouds, or the direction of the wind, and 
declare the aspects unfavourable; or he might 
proclaim day after day to be holy, and on holy 
days no legislation was permitted. Should 
these religious cobwebs be brushed away, the 
Senate had provided a further resource in 
three of the tribunes whom they had bribed. 
Thus they held themselves secure, and dared 
Caesar to do his worst. Caesar on his side 
was equally determined. The assembly was 
convoked. The Forum was choked to over- 
flowing. Caesar and Pompey stood on the 
steps of the Temple of Castor, and Bibulus 
and his tribunes were at hand ready with their 
interpellations. Such passions had not been 
roused in Rome since the days of Cinna and 
Octavius, and many a young lord was doubt- 
less hoping that the day would not close with- 
out another lesson to ambitious demagogues 
and howling mobs. In their eyes the one re- 
form which Rome needed was another Sylla. 

Caesar read his law from the tablet on which 
it was inscribed; and, still courteous to his 
antagonist, he turned to Bibulus and asked 
him if he had any fault to find. Bibulus said 
sullenly that he wanted no revolutions, and that 
while he was consul there should be none. 
The people hissed; and he then added in a 
rage, "You shall not have your law this year 
though every man of you demand it." Caesar 



answered nothing, but Pompey and Crassus 
stood forward. They were not officials, but 
they were real forces. Pompey was the idol 
of every soldier in the State, and at Caesar's 
invitation he addressed the assembly. He 
spoke for his veterans. He spoke for the poor 
citizens. He said that he approved the law to 
the last letter of it. 

"Will you, then," asked Caesar, "support 
the law if it be illegally opposed?" "Since," 
replied Pompey, "you, consul, and you, my 
fellow citizens, ask aid of me, a poor individual 
without office and without authority, who nev- 
ertheless has done some service to the State, 
I say that I will bear the shield, if others draw 
the sword." Applause rang out from a hun- 
dred thousand throats. Crassus followed to the 
same purpose, and was received with the same 
wild delight. A few senators, who retained 
their senses, saw the uselessness of opposition, 
and retired. Bibulus was of duller and tougher 
metal. As the vote was about to be taken he 
and his tribunes rushed to the rostra. The 
tribunes pronounced their veto. Bibulus said 
that he had consulted the sky; the gods forbade 
further action being taken that day, and he 
declared the assembly dissolved. Nay, as if a 
man like Caesar could be stopped by a shadow, 
he proposed to sanctify the whole remainder 
of the year, that no further business might 
be transacted in it. Yells drowned his voice. 
The mob rushed upon the steps; Bibulus was 
thrown down, and the rods of the lictors were 
broken; the tribunes who had betrayed their 
order were beaten; Cato held his ground, and 
stormed at Caesar, till he was led off by the 
police, raving and gesticulating. The law was 
then passed, and a resolution besides, that every 
senator should take an oath to obey it. 

So in ignominy the Senate's resistance col- 
lapsed: the Caesar whom they had thought to 
put off with their "woods and forests" had 
proved stronger than the whole of them; and, 
prostrate at the first round of the battle, they 
did not attempt another. They met the follow- 
ing morning. Bibulus told his story, and ap- 
pealed for support. Had the Senate complied, 
they would probably have ceased to exist. 
The oath was unpalatable, but they made the 
best of it. Metellus Celer, Cato, and Favonius, 
a senator whom men called Cato's ape, strug- 
gled against their fate, but, "swearing they would 
ne'er consent, consented." The unwelcome 
formula was swallowed by the whole of them; 
and Bibulus, who had done his part, and had 
been beaten and kicked and trampled upon, 



45- 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 



and now found his employers afraid to stand 
by him, went off sulkily to his house, shut him- 
self up there, and refused to act as consul 
further during the remainder of the year. 

There was no further active opposition. A 
commission was appointed by Ca'sar to carry 
out the Land Act, composed of twenty of the 
best men that could be found, one of them 
being Atius Balbus, the husband of Cesar's 
only sister, and grandfather of a little child 
now three years old, who was known after- 
wards to the world as Augustus. Cicero was 
offered a place, but declined. The land ques- 
tion having been disposed of, Caesar then pro- 
ceeded with the remaining measures by which 
his consulship was immortalised. He had re- 
deemed his promise to Pompey by providing 
for his soldiers. He gratified Crassus by giving 
the desired relief to the farmers of the taxes. 
He confirmed Pompey's arrangements for the 
government of Asia, which the Senate had left 
in suspense. The Senate was now itself sus- 
pended. The consul acted directly with the 
assembly, without obstruction, and without 
remonstrance, Bibulus only from time to time 
sending out monotonous admonitions from 
within doors that the season was consecrated, 
and that Ca-sar's acts had no validity. Still 
more remarkably, and as the distinguishing 
feature of his term of office, Cxsar carried, 
with the help of the people, the body of ad- 
mirable laws which arc known to jurists as the 
"Leges Julia 1 ," and mark an epoch in Roman 
history. They were laws as unwelcome to the 
aristocracy as they were essential to the con- 
tinued existence of the Roman State, laws which 
had been talked of in the Senate, but which 
could never pass through the preliminary stage 
of resolutions, and were now enacted over the 
Senate's head by the will of Caesar and the 
sovereign power of the nation. A mere out- 
line can alone be attempted here. There was 
a law declaring the inviolability of the persons 
of magistrates during their term of authority, 
reflecting back on the murder of Saturninus, 
and touching by implication the killing of 
Lentulus and his companions. There was a 
law for the punishment of adultery, most dis- 
interestedly singular if the popular accounts of 
Caesar's habits had any grain of truth in them. 
There were laws for the protection of the sub- 
ject from violence, public or private; and laws 
disabling persons who had laid hands illegally 
on Roman citizens from holding office in the 
Commonwealth. There was a law, intended 
at last to be effective, to deal with judges who 



allowed themselves to be bribed. There were 
laws against defrauders of the revenue; laws 
against debasing the coin; laws against sacri- 
lege; laws against corrupt State contracts; 
laws against bribery at elections. Finally, 
there was a law, carefully framed, De repctundis, 
to exact retribution from pro-consuls or pro- 
pra'tors of the type of Verres, who had plun- 
dered the provinces. All governors were re- 
quired, on relinquishing office, to make a double 
return of their accounts, one to remain for in- 
spection among the archives of the province, 
and one to be sent to Rome; and where pecu- 
lation or injustice could be proved, the offender's 
estate was made answerable to the last sesterce. 

Such laws were words only, without the will 
to execute them; but they affirmed the prin- 
ciples on which Roman or any other society 
could alone continue. It was for the officials 
of the constitution to adopt them, and save 
themselves and the Republic, or to ignore 
them as they had ignored the laws which already 
existed, and see it perish as it deserved. All 
that man could do for the preservation of his 
country from revolution Caesar had accom- 
plished. Sylla had reestablished the rule of 
the aristocracy, and it had failed grossly and 
disgracefully. Cinna and Marius had tried 
democracy, and that had failed. Caesar was 
trying what law would do, and the result re- 
mained to be seen. Bibulus, as each measure 
was passed, croaked that it was null and void. 
The leaders of the Senate threatened between 
their teeth that all should be undone when 
Caesar's term was over. Cato, when he men- 
tioned the "Leges Juliae," spoke of them as 
enactments, but refused them their author's 
name. But the excellence of these laws was 
so clearly recognised that they survived the 
irregularity of their introduction; and the "Lex 
de Repctundis'' especially remained a terror 
to evildoers, with a promise of better days 
to the miserable and pillaged subjects of the 
Roman Empire. 

So the year of Caesar's consulship passed 
away. What was to happen when it had ex- 
pired? The Senate had provided "the woods 
and forests" for him. But the Senate's pro- 
vision in such a matter could not be expected 
to hold. He asked for nothing, but he was 
known to desire an opportunity of distinguished 
service. Ca>sar was now forty-three. His 
life was ebbing away, and, with the exception 
of his two years in Spain, it had been spent in 
struggling with the base elements of Roman 
faction. Great men will bear such sordid work 



CESAR: A SKETCH 



453 



when it is laid on them, but they loathe it not- 
withstanding, and for the present there was 
nothing more to be done. A new point of 
departure had been taken. Principles had 
been laid down for the Senate and people to 
act on, if they could and would. Caesar could 
only wish for a long absence in some new sphere 
of usefulness, where he could achieve some- 
thing really great which his country would 
remember. 

And on one side only was such a sphere open 
to him. The East was Roman to the Eu- 
phrates. No second Mithridates could loosen 
the grasp with which the legions now held the 
civilised parts of Asia. Parthians might dis- 
turb the frontier, but could not seriously 
threaten the Eastern dominions; and no ad- 
vantage was promised by following on the steps 
of Alexander, and annexing countries too poor 
to bear the cost of their maintenance. To 
the west it was different. Beyond the Alps 
there was still a territory of unknown extent, 
stretching away to the undefined ocean, a 
territory peopled with warlike races, some of 
whom in ages long past had swept over Italy 
and taken Rome, and had left their descendants 
and their name in the northern province, which 
was now called Cisalpine Gaul. With these 
races the Romans had as yet no clear rela- 
tions, and from them alone could any serious 
danger threaten the State. The Gauls had 
for some centuries ceased their wanderings, 
had settled down in fixed localities. They had 
built towns and bridges; they had cultivated 
the soil, and had become wealthy and partly 
civilised. With the tribes adjoining Provence 
the Romans had alliances more or less precari- 
ous, and had established a kind of protectorate 
over them. But even here the inhabitants were 
uneasy for their independence, and troubles 
were continually arising with them; while into 
these districts and into the rest of Gaul a fresh 
and stormy element was now being introduced. 
In earlier times the Gauls had been stronger 
than the Germans, and not only could they pro- 
tect their own frontier, but they had formed 
settlements beyond the Rhine. These rela- 
tions were being changed. The Gauls, as 
they grew in wealth, declined in vigour. The 
Germans, still roving and migratory, were 
throwing covetous eyes out of their forests 
on the fields and vineyards of their neighbours, 
and enormous numbers of them were crossing 
the Rhine and Danube, looking for new homes. 
How feeble a barrier either the Alps or the 
Gauls themselves might prove against such 



invaders had been but too recently experienced. 
Men who were of middle age at the time of 
Caesar's consulship could still remember the 
terrors which had been caused by the invasion 
of the Cimbri and Teutons. Marius had saved 
Italy then from destruction, as it were, by the 
hair of its head. The annihilation of those 
hordes had given Rome a passing respite. But 
fresh generations had grown up. Fresh multi- 
tudes were streaming out of the North. Ger- 
mans in hundreds of thousands were again 
passing the Upper Rhine, rooting themselves 
in Burgundy, and coming in collision with 
tribes which Rome protected. There were 
uneasy movements among the Gauls themselves, 
whole nations of them breaking up from their 
homes and again adrift upon the world. Gaul 
and Germany were like a volcano giving signs 
of approaching eruption; and, at any moment 
and hardly with warning, another lava stream 
might be pouring down into Venetia and Lom- 
bardy. 

To deal with this danger was the work 
marked out for Caesar. It is the fashion to 
say that he sought a military command that he- 
might have an army behind him to overthrow 
the constitution. If this was his object, am- 
bition never chose a more dangerous or less 
promising route for itself. Men of genius who 
accomplish great things in this world do not 
trouble themselves with remote and visionary 
aims. They encounter emergencies as they 
rise, and leave the future to shape itself as it 
may. It would seem that at first the defence 
of Italy was all that was thought of. "The 
woods and forests" were set aside, and Caesar, 
by a vote of the people, was given the command 
of Cisalpine Gaul and Ulyria for five years; 
but either he himself desired, or especial cir- 
cumstances which were taking place beyond 
the mountains recommended, that a wider 
scope should be allowed him. The Senate, 
finding that the people would act without them 
if they hesitated, gave him in addition Gallia 
Comata, the land of the Gauls with the long 
hair, the governorship of the Roman province 
beyond the Alps, with untrammelled liberty 
to act as he might think good throughout the 
country which is now known as France and 
Switzerland and the Rhine provinces of Ger- 
many. 

He was to start early in the approaching year. 
It was necessary before he went to make some 
provision for the quiet government of the 
capital. The alliance with Pompey and 
Crassus gave temporary security. Pompey 



si 



I Wlis willow FROUDE 



had less stability of character than could have 
been w ished, bul he became attached to Cesar's 
daughter Julia; and a fresh link of marriage 
was formed to bold them together. Cesar 
himself married Calpurnia, the daughter of 
Calpurnius Piso. The Senate having tern 
porarily abdicated, he was able to guide the 
elections; and Piso and Pompeys friend 
Gabinius, who had obtained the command of 
the pirate war for him, wen- chosen consuls 
for the year 58. Neither of them, if we can 
believe a tithe of Cicero's invective, was good 
for much; but they were Btaunch partisans, 

and were to be relied on to resist any efforts 

whirh might be math- to repeal the "Leges 
Juliav" These matters being arranged, and 
ins own term having expired, Ctesai withdrew, 
according to custom, to the suburbs beyond 
the walls to collect troops and prepare for his 
departure. Strange things, however, had yet 
to happen before he was gone 

it is easy to conceive how the Senate felt 
at these transactions, how ill they bore to find 
themselves superseded, and the State managed 
over their heads. Fashionable society was 
equally furious, and the three allies went by 
the name of Dynasts, or "Reges Superbi. 
After resistance had been abandoned, Cicero 
came back to Rome to make cynical remarks 
from which all parties suffered equally. His 
special grievance was the want of considera- 
tion which he conceived to have been shown 
for himself. He mocked at the Senate; he 
mocked at Bibulus, whom he particularly 
abominated; he mocked at Pompey and the 
Agrarian law. Mockery turned to indignation 
when he thought of the ingratitude of the 
Senate, and his Hiirf consolation m their dis 
comfiture was that it had fallen on them through 
the neglect o\ their most distinguished member. 
"I could have saved them, if they would have 
let me," he said. "1 could save them still, 
if l were to try; but l will go study philosophy 
in my own family." "Freedom is gone," he 
wrote to Aniens; "and it we are to be worse 
enslaved, we shall bear it. Our lives and 
properties are more to us than liberty. We 
sigh, and we o\o not even remonstrate." 

Cato, in the desperation of passion, called 
Pompey a Dictator in the assembly, and nearrj 
escaped being killed for his pains. The pa 
tricians revenged themselves in private by 
savage speeches and plots and purposes. 
Fashionable society gathered in the theatres 

and hissed the popular leaders. Lines were 

introduced into the plays reflecting on Pompey, 



and were encored a thousand times. Bibulus 

from his closet continued to issue venomous 

placards, reporting scandals about Caesar's 

lite, and now lor the first time bringing up the 
Story of Nieomedes. The Streets were impas- 
sable where these papers were pasted up, from 

the crowds of loungers which were gathered to 

uad them, ami bibulus for the moment was 
the hero of patrician saloons. Some malicious 

comfort Cicero gathered out of these mani- 
festations o\ feeling, He had no belief in the 
noble lords, and small expectations from them, 
bibulus was, on the whole, a tit representa- 
tive lor the gentl y Of the fishponds, but the 
DynaStS wen- at least heartily detested in 
quarters Which had once been powerful, and 

might be powerful again; and he flattered him 
self, though he affected to regret it, that the 

animosity against them was Spreading. To all 
parties there is attached a draggled trail of 
disreputables, who hold themselves entitled 
to benefits when their side is in power, and are 
angry when they are passed over. 

" The Stale," Cicero wrote in the autumn 
of 59 to Alliens, "is in a worse condition than 
when you left us; then we thought that we had 
fallen under a power which pleased the people, 
ami which, though abhorrent to the good, \ it 

was not totally destructive to them. Now 

all hate it equally, and we are in terror as to 
where tin- exasperation may break out. We 
had experienced the ill temper and irritation 
of those who in their anger with Cato hail 
brought ruin on us; but the poison worked so 
Slowly that it seemed we might die without 
pain. 1 hoped, as I often told you, that the 
wheel of the constitution was so turning that 
WC should scarcely hear a sound or see any 
visible track; and so it would have been could 
men have waited for the tempest to pass over 
them, but the secret sighs turned to groans, 
and the groans to universal clamour; and thus 
our friend Pompey, who so lately swam in 
glory, and never heard an evil word of himself, 
is broken hearted, and knows not whither to 
turn. A precipice is before him, and to retreat 
is dangerous. The good are against him 
the bad are not his friends. 1 could sea we 
help weeping the other day when 1 heard him 
complaining in the Forum of the publications 

of bibulus. He who but a short time since 
bore himself so proudly there, with the people 
in raptures with him, and with the world on 
his side, was now so humble and abject as to 
disgust even himself, not to sav his hearers. 
CrasSUS enjoyed the scene, but no one else, 






(VKSAR: A SKETC1 

Pompey bad fallen < I » > w 1 1 oul of the stars 
not l>y a gradual descent, l>ui in a single plunge; 

mikI ;is Apellcs if he had seen his V'rmis, or 

Protogenes Ins Lalysus, all daubed will id, 

would have been vexed and annoyed, so w;is I 

grieved to the very heart to see one w] I had 

painted <>ut in the choicest colours of art thus 
suddenly defaced. Pompey is sick wiih irri 
tation :ii the placards of Bibulus. I am sorry 
about them; they give such excessive annoy 
ance to a man whom l have always liked. 

And Pompey is so prompl with his sword, and 

so unaccustomed to insult, that I fear what he 
may do, What the future may have in store 
for bibulus I know noi. Ai present he is the 

admired of all." 

" Sampsiceramus," Cicero wrote a few days 
later, "is greatly penitent. He would gladly 
be restored i<> the eminence from which he 
has fallen, Sometimes he imparts his griefs to 
me, and asks me what he should do, which 1 
cannot tell him." * 

Unfortunate Cicero, who knew whal was 
right, luit was too proud io do ii ! Unfortunate 

Pompey, who slill did whal was right, but was 

too sensitive to bear the reproach of it, who 

would SO gladly llOt leave his duly unperformed, 
and yet keep ihe "sweel voices" whose ap 
plausc had grown SO delicious Io him ! BibuluS 

was in n<> danger. Pompey was too good na 

lured Io hurl him; and Ca-sar lei fools say 
whal I hey pleased, as long as ihey were fools 

without teeth, who would bark but could not 

bite. The risk was lo Cicero himself, Little as 
he seemed lo he aware of il. Ca\sar was lo 

be long absent from Rome, and he knew that 
as soon as he was engaged in Gaul the extreme 
oligarchic faction would make an effort to set 

aside his Land Commission and undo his 
legislation. When he had a clear purpose in 
view, and was satisfied thai il was a, f^ood 
purpose, he was never scrupulous aboul his in- 
struments. Il was said of him, Ihal when he 
Wanted any work done, he chose the persons 
best aide lo do il, lei Iheii general < harai ler be 
what il might. 'The rank and file of Ihe pa 

nil ians, proud, idle, vicious, and self indulgent, 
might be left to their mistresses and their 

gaming tables. They could do no mischief, 
unless Ihey had leaders al their head, who 
could use their resources more effectively lhan 
they COUld do themselves. There were Iwo 
men only in Rome with whose help they could 
be really dangerous CatO, because he was a 

fanatic, impregnable to argument, and not to 
be influenced by temptation of advantage to 



455 

himself; Cicero, on account of his exlreme 

ability, his personal ambition, and his wanl 
of political principle. Cato be knew to In- im 
pra< tii aide. < !i( ero he had tried to gain ; but 

Cicero, who had played a first pari as Consul, 
COUld not bring himself lo play a seiond, and, 
if iIk- i ham e offered, had liolh power and will 
lo lie troublesome. Some means had lo he 

found to get ri<l of these two, or at least to tie 

their hands and to keep them in order. There 
would be Pompey and CraSSUS slill al hand. 
Hut Pompey was weak, and Crassus under 

siood nothing beyond the art of manipulating 
money. Gabinius and Piso, the nexl consuls, 
had an indifferent reputation and narrow 

abilities, and at besl Ihey would have but 

their one year of authority. Politics, like love, 

makes Strange bedfellows. In llu's difficulty 

accident threw in Cesar's way a convenient 
bui most unexpected ally. 

Voung ClodlUS, after his escape from pro- 
BeCUtion by the marvellous methods which 
Crassus had provided for him, was more popu 
In than ever. lie had been ihe occasion of a 
scandal which had brought infamy on Ihe de 
tested Senate. His offence in itself seemed 
venial in so loose an age, and was a:, nothing 

compared with the enormity of his fudges, lie 

had come oul of his dial wilh a delei in in.il ion 
lo be revenged on Ihe persons from whose 
tongues he had suffered most severely in Ihe 

senatorial debates. <)f these Cato had been 
the most savage; but Cicero had been ihe most 

exasperating, from his sarcasms, his airs of 

patronage, and perhaps his intimacy with his 
sister. The noble youth had exhausted the 

Common forms of pleasure. lie wauled a new 

excitement, and politics and vengeance might 

be combined. lie was as clever as he was 
dissolute, and, as clever men are fortunately 

rare in the licentious pari of society, ihey arc 

always idolised, because ihey make vice respecl 

able by connecting ii wiih intellect. Clodius 

was a second, an abler Catiline, equally un- 
principled, and far more, dexterous ana prudent. 
In times of revolution i lure is always a disrepu- 
table wing tO the radii al parly, composed of men 
who are ihe nalural enemies of established 
authority, and these all rallied ahoiil their new 
leader wilh devoiil enl h usiasni. Clodius was 

not withoul political experience His first. 
public appearance had been as leader of a 
mutiny, He was already quaestor, and so a 
senator; but he was too young to aspire to the 
higher magistracies which wen- open to him 
as a patrician, lie declared his intention of 



456 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 



renouncing his order, becoming a plebeian, and 
standing for the tribuneship of the people. 
There were precedents for such a step, but they 
were rare. The abdicating noble had to be 
adopted into a plebeian family, and the consent 
was required of the consuls and of the Pon- 
tifical College. With the growth of political 
equality the aristocracy had become more 
insistent upon the privilege of birth, which 
could not be taken from them ; and for a 
Claudius to descend among the commoners was 
as if a Howard were to seek adoption from a 
shopkeeper in the Strand. 

At first there was universal amazement. 
Cicero had used the intrigue with Pompeia 
as a text for a sermon on the immoralities of the 
age. The aspirations of Clodius to be a trib- 
une he ridiculed as an illustration of its follies, 
and after scourging him in the Senate, he 
laughed at him and jested with him in private. 
Cicero did not understand with how venomous 
a snake he was playing. He even thought 
Claudius likely to turn against the Dynasts, 
and to become a serviceable member of the 
conservative party. Gradually he was forced 
to open his eyes. Speeches were reported to 
him as coming from Clodius or his allies 
threatening an inquiry into the death of the 
Catilinarians. At first he pushed his alarms 
aside, as unworthy of him. What had so great 
a man as he to fear from a young reprobate 
like "the pretty boy"? The "pretty boy," 
however, found favour where it was least looked 
for. Pompey supported his adventure for the 
tribuneship. Caesar, though it was Caesar's 
house which he had violated, did not oppose. 
Pihulus refused consent, but Bibulus had 
virtually abdicated, and went for nothing. 
The legal forms were complied with. Clodius 
found a commoner younger than himself who 
was willing to adopt him, and who, the day 
after the ceremony, released him from the new 
paternal authority. He was now a plebeian, 
and free. He remained a senator in virtue 
of his qiuestorship, and he was chosen tribune 
of the people for the year 58. 

Cicero was at last startled out of his security. 
So long as the consuls, or one of them, could be 
depended on, a tribune's power was insignifi- 
cant. When the consuls were of his own way 
of thinking, a tribune was a very important 
personage indeed. Atticus was alarmed for 
his friend, and cautioned him to look to him- 
self. Warnings came from all quarters that 
mischief was in the wind. Still it was impos- 
sible to believe the peril to be a real one. 



Cicero, to whom Rome owed its existence, to 
be struck at by a Clodius! It could not be. 
As little could a wasp hurt an elephant. 

There can be little doubt that Caesar knew 
what Clodius had in his mind; or that, if the 
design was not his own, he had purposely 
allowed it to go forward. Caesar did not wish 
to hurt Cicero. He wished well to him, and 
admired him; but he did not mean to leave 
him free in Rome to lead a senatorial reaction. 
A prosecution for the execution of the prison- 
ers was now distinctly announced. Cicero as 
consul had put to death Roman citizens with- 
out a trial. Cicero was to be called to answer 
for the illegality before the sovereign people. 
The danger was unmistakable; and Caesar, 
who was still in the suburbs making his 
preparations, invited Cicero to avoid it, by ac- 
companying him as second in command into 
Gaul. The offer was made in unquestionable 
sincerity. Caesar may himself have created the 
situation to lay Cicerd under a pressure, but 
he desired nothing so much as to take him as 
his companion, and to attach him to himself. 
Cicero felt the compliment and hesitated to 
refuse, but his pride again came in his way. 
Pompey assured him that not a hair of his 
head should be touched. Why Pompey gave 
him this encouragement Cicero could never 
afterwards understand. The scenes in the 
theatres had also combined to mislead him, and 
he misread the disposition of the great body 
of citizens. He imagined that they would 
all start up in his defence, Senate, aristocracy, 
knights, commoners, and tradesmen. The 
world, he thought, looked back upon his con- 
sulship with as much admiration as he did 
himself, and was always contrasting him with 
his successors. Never was mistake more 
profound. The Senate, who had envied his 
talents and resented his assumption, now de- 
spised him as a trimmer. His sarcasms had 
made him enemies among those who acted with 
him politically. He had held aloof at the crisis 
of Caesar's election and in the debates which 
followed, and therefore all sides distrusted him; 
while throughout the body of the people there 
was, as Caesar had foretold, a real and sustained 
resentment at the conduct of the Catiline 
affair. The final opinion of Rome was that 
the prisoners ought to have been tried; and 
that they were not tried was attributed not 
unnaturally to a desire, on the part of the 
Senate, to silence an inquiry which might have 
proved inconvenient. 

Thus suddenly out of a clear sky the thunder- 









CESAR: A SKETCH 



457 



clouds gathered over Cicero's head. "Clo- 
dius," says Dion Cassius, "had discovered that 
among the senators Cicero was more feared 
than loved. There were few of them who had 
not been hit l>y his irony, or irritated by his 
presumption." Those who most agreed in 
what he had done were not ashamed to shullle 
off upon him their responsibilities. Clodius, 
now omnipotent with the assembly at his back, 
cleared the way by a really useful step; he 
carried a law abolishing the impious form of 
declaring the heavens unfavourable when an 
inconvenient measure was to be stopped or 
delayed. 1'robably it formed a part of his 
engagement with Caesar. The law may have 
been meant to act retrospectively, to prevent 
a question being raised on the interpellations 
of Bibulus. This done, and without paying 
the Senate the respect of first consulting it, he 
gave notice that he would propose a vote to the 
assembly, to the effect that any person who had 
put to death a Roman citizen without trial, 
and without allowing him an appeal to the 
people, had violated the constitution of the 
State. Cicero was not named directly; every 
senator who had voted for the execution of 
Cethegus and Lentulus and their companions 
was as guilty as he; but it was known imme- 
diately that Cicero was the mark that was being 
aimed at, and Ca-sar at once renewed I he offer, 
which he made before, to lake Cicero with him. 
Cicero, now frightened in earnest, still could 
not bring himself to owe his escape to Ca-sar. 
The Senate, ungrateful as they had been, put 
on mourning with an affectation of dismay. 
The knights petitioned the consuls to interfere 
for Cicero's protection. The consuls declined 
to receive their request. Caesar outsidr the 
city gave no further sign. A meeting of the 
citizens was held in the camp. Caesar's opinion 
was invited. He said that he had not changed 
his sentiments. He had remonstrated at the 
time against the execution. He disapproved 
of it still, but he did not directly advise legisla- 
tion upon acts that were past. Yet, though he 
did not encourage Clodius, he did not interfere. 
He left the matter to the consuls, and one of 
them was his own father-in-law, and the other 
was Gabinius, once Pompey's favourite officer. 
Gabinius, Cicero thought, would respect Pom- 
pey's promise to him. To Piso he made a 
personal appeal. lie found him, he said after- 
wards, at eleven in the morning, in his slippers, 
at a low tavern. Piso came out, reeking with 
wine, and excused himself by saying that his 
health required a morning draught. Cicero 



affected to believe his apology; and he stood at 
the tavern door as long as he could bear the 
smell and the foul language and the expectora- 
tions of the consul. I lope in that quarter there 
was none. Two days later the assembly was 
called to consider Clodius's proposal. Piso 
was asked to say what he thought of the treat- 
ment of the conspirators; he answered gravely, 
and, as Cicero described him, with one eye in 
his forehead, that he disapproved of cruelty. 
Neither Pompey nor his friends came to help. 
What was Cicero to do? Resist by force? 
The young knights rallied about him eager for 
a fight, if he would but give the word. Some- 
times, as he looked back in after years, he 
blamed himself for declining their services, 
sometimes he took credit to himself for refus- 
ing to be the occasion of bloodshed. 

I was too timid," he said once; "I had the 
country with me, and I should have stood firm. 
I had to do with a band of villains only, with 
two monsters of consuls, and with the male 
harlot of rich buffoons, the seducer of his 
sister, the high priest of adultery, a poisoner, a 
forger, an assassin, a thief. The best and brav- 
est citizens implored me to stand up to him. 
Put I reflected that this Fury asserted that he 
was supported by Pompey and Crassus and 
Caesar. Caesar had an army at the gates. 
The other two could raise another army when 
they pleased; and when they knew that their 
names were thus made use of, they remained 
silent. They were alarmed, perhaps, because 
the laws which they had carried in the preceding 
year were challenged by the new prators, and 
were held by the Senate to be invalid; and they 
were unwilling to alienate a popular tribune." 
And again elsewhere: "When I saw that the 
faction of Catiline was in power, that the party 
which I had led, some from envy of myself, 
some from fear for their own lives, had betrayed 
and deserted me; when the two consuls had 
been purchased by promises of provinces, and 
had gone over to my enemies, and the condition 
of the bargain was, that I was to be delivered 
over, tied and bound, to my enemies; when the 
Senate and knights were in mourning, but were 
not allowed to bring my cause before the people; 
when my blood had been made the seal of the 
arrangement under which the State had been 
disposed of; when I saw all this, although 'the 
good' were ready to fight for me, and were 
willing to die for me, I would not consent, be- 
cause I saw that victory or defeat would alike 
bring ruin to the Commonwealth. The Senate 
was powerless. The Forum was ruled by 



458 



GEORGE ELIOT" 



violence. In such a city there was no place 
for me." 

So Cicero, as he looked back afterwards, 
described the struggle in his own mind. His 
friends had then rallied; Cesar was far away; 
and he could tell his own story, and could pile 
his invectives on those who had injured him. 
His matchless literary power has given him 
exclusive command over the history of his time. 
His enemies' characters have been accepted 
from his pen as correct portraits. If we allow 
his description of Clodius and the two consuls 
to be true to the facts, what harder condemna- 
tion can be pronounced against a political con- 
dition in which such men as these could be 
raised to the first position in the State? Dion 
says that Cicero's resolution to yield did not 
wholly proceed from his own prudence, but was 
assisted by advice from Cato and Ilortensius 
the orator. Anyway, the blow fell, and he 
went down before it. I lis immortal consulship, 
in praise of which he had written a poem, 
brought after it the swift retribution which 
Ca?sar had foretold. When the vote proposed 
by Clodius was carried he fled to Sicily, with a 
tacit confession that he dared not abide his 
trial, which would immediately have followed. 
Sentence was pronounced upon him in his 
absence. His property was confiscated. His 
houses in town and country were razed. The 
site of his palace in Rome was dedicated to the 
Goddess of Liberty, and he himself was exiled. 
He was forbidden to reside within four hundred 
miles of Rome, with a threat of death if he 
returned; and he retired to Macedonia, to pour 
out his sorrows and his resentments in lamenta- 
tions unworthy of a woman. 

"GEORGE ELIOT," MARY ANN 
EVANS (CROSS) (1819-1880) 

THE MILL ON THE FLOSS 

BOOK VII. CHAPTER V 

The Last Conflict 

In the second week of September, Maggie 
was again sitting in her lonely room, battling 
with the old shadowy enemies that were for- 
ever slain and rising again. It was past mid- 
night, and the rain was beating heavily against 
the window, driven with fitful force by the 
rushing, loud-moaning wind. For, the day 
after Lucy's visit, there had been a sudden 
change in the weather: the heat and drought 
had given way to cold variable winds, and heavy 



falls of rain at intervals; and she had been 
forbidden to risk the contemplated journey 
until the weather should become more settled. 
In the counties higher up the Floss, the rains 
had been continuous, and the completion of 
the harvest had been arrested. And now, 
for the last two days, the rains on this lower 
course of the river had been incessant, so that 
the old men had shaken their heads and talked 
of sixty years ago, when the same sort of 
weather, happening about the equinox, brought 
on the great floods, which swept the bridge 
away, and reduced the town to great misery. 
But the younger generation, who had seen 
several small floods, thought lightly of these 
sombre recollections and forebodings; and 
Bob Jakin, naturally prone to take a hopeful 
view of his own luck, laughed at his mother 
when she regretted their having taken a house 
by the riverside; observing that but for that 
they would have had no boats, which were the 
most lucky of possessions in case of a flood that 
obliged them to go to a distance for food. 

But the careless and the fearful were alike 
sleeping in their beds now. There was hope 
that the rain would abate by the morrow; 
threaten ings of a worse kind, from sudden 
thaws after falls of snow, had often passed 
off in the experience of the younger ones; and 
at the very worst, the banks would be sure to 
break lower down the river when the tide came 
in with violence, and so the waters would be 
carried oil, without causing more than tem- 
porary inconvenience, and losses that would 
be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity 
would relieve. 

All were in their beds now, for it was past 
midnight: all except some solitary watchers 
such as Maggie. She was seated in her little 
parlour towards the river with one candle, that 
left everything dim in the room, except a letter 
which lay before her on the table. That letter 
which had come to her to-day, was one of the 
causes that had kept her up far on into the 
night — unconscious how the hours were going 
— careless of seeking rest — with no image 
of rest coming across her mind, except of that 
far, far off rest, from which there would be no 
more waking for her into this struggling earthly 
life. 

Two davs before Maggie received that letter, 
she had been to the Rectory for the last time 
The heavy rain would have prevented her from 
going since; but there was another reason 
Dr. Kenn, at first enlightened only by a few 
hints as to the new turn which gossip and 



THE MILL ON THE FLOSS 



459 



slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had 
recently been made more fully aware of it by 
an earnest remonstrance from one of his male 
parishioners against the indiscretion of per- 
sisting in the attempt to overcome the prevalent 
feeling in the parish by a course of resistance. 
Dr. Kenn, having a conscience void of offence 
in the matter, was still inclined to persevere — 
was still averse to give way before a public 
sentiment that was odious and contemptible; 
but he was finally wrought upon by the con- 
sideration of the peculiar responsibi'ity attached 
to his office, of avoiding the appearance of 
evil — an "appearance" that is always de- 
pendent on the average quality of surrounding 
minds. Where these minds are low and gross, 
the area of that "appearance" is proportion- 
ately widened. Perhaps he was in danger of 
acting from obstinacy; perhaps it was his duty 
to succumb: conscientious people are apt to 
see their duty in that which is the most pain- 
ful course; and to recede was always painful 
to Dr. Kenn. He made up his mind that he 
must advise Maggie to go away from St. Ogg's 
for a time; and he performed that difficult 
task with as much delicacy as he could, only 
stating in vague terms that he found his attempt 
to countenance her stay was a source of discord 
between himself and his parishioners, that was 
likely to obstruct his usefulness as a clergyman. 
He begged her to allow him to write to a clerical 
friend of his, who might possibly take her into 
his own family as governess; and, if not, would 
probably know of some other available position 
for a young woman in whose welfare Dr. Kenn 
felt a strong interest. 

Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip: 
she could say nothing but a faint "thank you 
— I shall be grateful"; and she walked back 
to her lodgings, through the driving rain, with 
a new sense of desolation. She must be a 
lonely wanderer; she must go out among fresh 
faces, that would look at her wonderingly, 
because the days did not seem joyful to her; 
she must begin a new life, in which she would 
have to rouse herself to receive new impres- 
sions — and she was so unspeakably, sicken- 
ingly weary! There was no home, no help 
for the erring: even those who pitied were 
constrained to hardness. But ought she to 
complain? Ought she to shrink in this way 
from the long penance of life, which was all 
the possibility she had of lightening the load 
to some other sufferers, and so changing that 
passionate error into a new force of unselfish 
human love? All the next day she sat in her 



lonely room, with a window darkened by the 
cloud and the driving rain, thinking of that 
future, and wrestling for patience: — for what 
repose could poor Maggie ever win except by 
wrestling? 

And on the third day — this day of which 
she had just sat out the close — the letter had 
come which was lying on the table before her. 

The letter was from Stephen. He was come 
back from Holland: he was at Mudport again, 
unknown to any of his friends; and had written 
to her from that place, enclosing the letter to a 
person whom he trusted in St. Ogg's. From 
beginning to end it was a passionate cry of 
reproach: an appeal against her useless sacri- 
fice of him — of herself: against that perverted 
notion of right which led her to crush all his 
hopes, for the sake of a mere idea, and not any 
substantial good — his hopes, whom she loved, 
and who loved her with that single overpower- 
ing passion, that worship, which a man never 
gives to a woman more than once in his life. 

"They have written to me that you are to 
marry Kenn. As if I should believe that ! 
Perhaps they have told you some such fables 
about me. Perhaps they tell you I've been 
'travelling.' My body has been dragged about 
somewhere; but / have never travelled from 
the hideous place where you left me — where 
I started up from a stupor of helpless rage to 
find you gone. 

"Maggie! whose pain can have been like 
mine? Whose injury is like mine? Who be- 
sides me has met that long look of love that 
has burnt itself into my soul, so that no other 
image can come there? Maggie, call me back 
to you ! — call me back to life and goodness ! 
I am banished from both now. I have no 
motives: I am indifferent to everything. Two 
months have only deepened the certainty that 
I can never care for life without you. Write 
me one word — say ' Come ! ' In two days 
I should be with you. Maggie — have you 
forgotten what it was to be together? — to be 
within reach of a look — to be within hearing 
of each other's voice?" 

When Maggie first read this letter she felt 
as if her real temptation had only just begun. 
At the entrance of the chill dark cavern, we 
turn with unworn courage from the warm 
light; but how, when we have trodden far in 
the damp darkness, and have begun to be faint 
and weary — how, if there is a sudden opening 
above us, and we are invited back again to the 
life-nourishing day? The leap of natural 
longing from under the pressure of pain is 



460 



GEORGE ELIOT 



so strong, that all less immediate motives are 
likely to be forgotten — till the pain has been 
escaped from. 

For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had 
been in vain. For hours every other thought 
that she strove to summon was thrust aside 
by the image of Stephen waiting for the single 
word that would bring him to her. She did 
not read the letter: she heard him uttering it, 
and the voice shook her with its old strange 
power. All the day before she had been filled 
with the vision of a lonely future through which 
she must carry the burden of regret, upheld 
only by clinging faith. And here — close 
within her reach — urging itself upon her 
even as a claim — was another future, in which 
hard endurance and effort were to be exchanged 
for easy delicious leaning on another's loving 
strength ! And yet that promise of joy in the 
place of sadness did not make the dire force 
of the temptation to Maggie. It was Stephen's 
tone of misery, it was the doubt in the justice 
of her own resolve, that made the balance 
tremble, and made her once start from her 
seat to reach the pen and paper, and write 
"Come!" 

But close upon that decisive act, her mind 
recoiled; and the sense of contradiction with 
her past self in her moments of strength and 
clearness, came upon her like a pang of con- 
scious degradation. No — she must wait; she 
must pray; the light that had forsaken her 
would come again: she should feel again what 
she had felt, when she had fled away, under 
an inspiration strong enough to conquer agony 
— to conquer love : she should feel again what 
she had felt when Lucy stood by her, when 
Philip's letter had stirred all the fibres that 
bound her to the calmer past. 

She sat quite still, far on into the night: 
with no impulse to change her attitude, with- 
out active force enough even for the mental 
act of prayer: only waiting for the light that 
would surely come again. It came with the 
memories that no passion could long quench: 
the long past came back to her, and with it the 
fountains of self-renouncing pity and affection, 
of faithfulness and resolve. The words that 
were marked by the quiet hand in the little old 
book that she had long ago learned by heart, 
rushed even to her lips, and found a vent for 
themselves in a low murmur that was quite 
lost in the loud driving of the rain against the 
window and the loud moan and roar of the 
wind: "I have received the Cross, I have 
received it from Thy hand; I will bear it, and 



bear it till death, as Thou hast laid it upon 
me." 

But soon other words rose that could find 
no utterance but in a sob: "Forgive me, 
Stephen ! It will pass away. You will come 
back to her." 

She took up the letter, held it to the candle, 
and let it burn slowly on the hearth. To- 
morrow she would write to him the last word 
of parting. 

"I will bear it, and bear it till death. . . . 
But how long it will be before death comes! 
I am so young, so healthy. How shall I have 
patience and strength? Am I to struggle and 
fall and repent again ? — has life other trials 
as hard for me still?" 

With that cry of self-despair, Maggie fell 
on her knees against the table, and buried her 
sorrow-stricken face. Her soul went out to the 
Unseen Pity that would be with her to the end. 
Surely there was something being taught her 
by this experience of great need; and she must 
be learning a secret of human tenderness and 
long-suffering, that the less erring could hardly 
know? "O God, if my life is to be long, let 
me live to bless and comfort — " 

At that moment Maggie felt a startling sen- 
sation of sudden cold about her knees and feet: 
it was water flowing under her. She started 
up: the stream was flowing under the door 
that led into the passage. She was not be- 
wildered for an instant — she knew it was the 
flood! 

The tumult of emotion she had been enduring 
for the last twelve hours seemed to have left 
a great calm in her: without screaming, she 
hurried with the candle up-stairs to Bob Jakin's 
bedroom. The door was ajar; she went in 
and shook him by the shoulder. 

"Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house! 
let us see if we can make the boats safe." 

She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, 
snatching up her baby, burst into screams; 
and then she hurried down again to see if the 
waters were rising fast. There was a step 
down into the room at the door leading from 
the staircase; she saw that the water was 
already on a level with the step. While she 
was looking, something came with a tremendous 
crash against the window, and sent the leaded 
panes and the old wooden framework inwards 
in shivers, — the water pouring in after it. 

"It is the boat!" cried Maggie. "Bob, 
come down to get the boats!" 

And without a moment's shudder of fear, 
she plunged through the water, which was 






THE MILL ON THE FLOSS 



461 



rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering 
light of the candle she had left on the stairs, 
she mounted on to the window-sill, and crept 
into the boat, which was left with the prow 
lodging and protruding through the window. 
Bob was not long after her, hurrying without 
shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his 
hand. 

"Why, they're both here — both the boats," 
said Bob, as he got into the one where Mag- 
gie was. "It's wonderful this fastening isn't 
broke too, as well as the mooring." 

In the excitement of getting into the other 
boat, unfastening it, and mastering an oar, 
Bob was not struck with the danger Maggie 
incurred. We are not apt to fear for the fear- 
less, when we are companions in their danger, 
and Bob's mind was absorbed in possible ex- 
pedients for the safety of the helpless indoors. 
The fact that Maggie had been up, had waked 
him, and had taken the lead in activity, gave 
Bob a vague impression of her as one who 
would help to protect, not need to be protected. 
She too had got possession of an oar, and had 
pushed off, so as to release the boat from the 
overhanging window-frame. 

"The water's rising so fast," said Bob, "I 
doubt it'll be in at the chambers before long 
— th' house is so low. I've more mind to get 
Prissy and the child and the mother into the 
boat, if I could, and trusten to the water — 
for th' old house is none so safe. And if I 
let go the boat . . . but you," he exclaimed, 
suddenly lifting the light of his lanthorn on 
Maggie, as she stood in the rain with the oar 
in her hand and her black hair streaming. 

Maggie had no time to answer, for a new 
tidal current swept along the line of the houses, 
and drove both the boats out on to the wide 
water, with a force that carried them far past 
the meeting current of the river. 

In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, 
thought of nothing, but that she had suddenly 
passed away from that life which she had been 
dreading: it was the transition of death, with- 
out its agony — and she was alone in the 
darkness with God. 

The whole thing had been so rapid — so 
dream-like — that the threads of ordinary 
association were broken: she sank down on 
the seat clutching the oar mechanically, and 
for a long while had no distinct conception of 
her position. The first thing that waked her 
to fuller consciousness was the cessation of the 
rain, and a perception that the darkness was 
divided by the faintest light, which parted the 



overhanging gloom from the immeasurable 
watery level below. She was driven out upon 
the flood: — that awful visitation of God 
which her father used to talk of — which had 
made the nightmare of her childish dreams. 
And with that thought there rushed in the vision 
of the old home — and Tom — and her mother 

— they had all listened together. 

"O God, where am I? Which is the way 
home?" she cried out, in the dim loneliness. 

What was happening to them at the Mill? 
The flood had once nearly destroyed it. They 
might be in danger — in distress: her mother 
and her brother, alone there, beyond reach of 
help ! Her whole soul was strained now on 
that thought ; and she saw the long-loved faces 
looking for help into the darkness, and finding 
none. 

She was floating in smooth water now — 
perhaps far on the overflooded fields. There 
was no sense of present danger to check the 
outgoing of her mind to the old home; and she 
strained her eyes against the curtain of gloom 
that she might seize the first sight of her where- 
about — that she might catch some faint sug- 
gestion of the spot towards which all her anxi- 
eties tended. 

Oh how welcome, the widening of that dis- 
mal watery level — the gradual uplifting of the 
cloudy firmament — the slowly defining black- 
ness of objects above the glassy dark ! Yes 

— she must be out on the fields — those were 
the tops of hedgerow trees. Which way did 
the river lie? Looking behind her, she saw 
the lines of black trees: looking before her, 
there were none: then, the river lay before her. 
She seized an oar and began to paddle the boat 
forward with the energy of wakening hope: 
the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly, 
now she was in action ; and she could soon see 
the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously on 
a mound where they had taken refuge. On- 
ward she paddled and rowed by turns in the 
growing twilight: her wet clothes clung round 
her, and her streaming hair was dashed about 
by the wind, but she was hardly conscious of 
any bodily sensations — except a sensation of 
strength, inspired by mighty emotion. Along 
with the sense of danger and possible rescue 
for those long-remembered beings at the old 
home, there was an undefined sense of recon- 
cilement with her brother: what quarrel, what 
harshness, what unbelief in each other can 
subsist in the presence of a great calamity, 
when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, 
and we are all one with each other in primitive 



462 



GEORGE ELIOT 



mortal needs ? Vaguely, Maggie felt this; 

— in the strong resurgent love towards her 
brother that swept away all the later impres- 
sions of hard, cruel offence and misunderstand- 
ing, and left only the deep, underlying, un- 
shakable memories of early union. 

But now there was a large dark mass in the 
distance, and near to her Maggie could discern 
the current of the river. The dark mass must 
be — yes, it was — St. Ogg's. Ah, now she 
knew which way to look for the first glimpse of 
the well-known trees — the gray willows, the 
now yellowing chestnuts — and above them 
the old roof! But there was no colour, no 
shape yet: all was faint and dim. More and 
more strongly the energies seemed to come and 
put themselves forth, as if her life were a stored- 
up force that was being spent in this hour, 
unneeded for any future. 

She must get her boat into the current of the 
Floss, else she would never be able to pass the 
Ripple and approach the house: this was the 
thought that occurred to her, as she imagined 
with more and more vividness the state of 
things round the old home. But then she 
might be carried very far down, and be unable 
to guide her boat out of the current again. 
For the first time distinct ideas of danger began 
to press upon her; but there was no choice 
of courses, no room for hesitation, and she 
floated into the current. Swiftly she went now, 
without effort; more and more clearly in the 
lessening distance and the growing light she 
began to discern the objects that she knew must 
be the well-known trees and roofs; nay, she 
saw not far off a rushing muddy current that 
must be the strangely altered Ripple. 

Great God ! there were floating masses in 
it, that might dash against her boat as she 
passed, and cause her to perish too soon. 
What were those masses? 

For the first time Maggie's heart began to 
beat in an agony of dread. She sat helpless 

— dimly conscious that she was being floated 
along — more intensely conscious of the antici- 
pated clash. But the horror was transient: 
it passed away before the oncoming warehouses 
of St. Ogg's: she had passed the mouth of the 
Ripple, then: now, she must use all her skill 
and power to manage the boat and get it if 
possible out of the current. She could see now 
that the bridge was broken down : she could 
see the masts of a stranded vessel far out over 
the watery field. But no boats were to be seen 
moving on the river — such as had been laid 
hands on were employed in the flooded streets. 



With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, 
and stood up again to paddle; but the now 
ebbing tide added to the swiftness of the river, 
and she was carried along beyond the bridge. 
She could hear shouts from the windows over- 
looking the river, as if the people there were 
calling to her. It was not till she had passed 
on nearly to Tofton that she could get the boat 
clear of the current. Then with one yearning 
look towards her uncle Deane's house that lay 
farther down the river, she took to both her 
oars, and rowed with all her might across the 
watery Melds, back towards the Mill. Colour 
was beginning to awake now, and as she 
approached the Dorlcote fields, she could dis- 
cern the tints of the trees — could see the old 
Scotch firs far to the right, and the home chest- 
nuts — oh, how deep they lay in the water ! 
deeper than the trees on this side the hill. 
And the roof of the Mill — where was it? 
Those heavy fragments hurrying down the 
Ripple — what had they meant? But it was 
not the house — the house stood firm : drowned 
up to the first storey, but still firm — or was it 
broken in at the end towards the Mill? 

With panting joy that she was there at last 
— joy that overcame all distress — Maggie 
ncared the front of the house. At first she 
heard no sound: she saw no object moving. 
Her boat was on a level with the up-stairs 
window. She called out in a loud piercing 
voice: 

"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are 
you ? Here is Maggie ! " 

Soon, from the window of the -attic in the 
central gable, she heard Tom's voice: 

"Who is it? Have you brought a boat?" 

"It is I, Tom — Maggie. Where is mother? " 

"She is not her.e: she went to Garum, the 
day before yesterday. I'll come down to the 
lower window." 

"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of 
deep astonishment, as he opened the middle 
window on a level with the boat. 

"Yes, Tom: God has taken care of me, to 
bring me to you. Get in quickly. Is there 
no one else?" 

"No," said Tom, stepping into the boat, 
"I fear the man is drowned: he was carried 
down the Ripple, I think, when part of the 
Mill fell with the crash of trees and stones 
against it: I've shouted again and again, and 
there has been no answer. Give me the oars, 
Maggie." 

It was not till Tom had pushed off anc 
they were on the wide water — he face to face 



JOHN RUSKIN 



463 



with Maggie — that the full meaning of what 
had happened rushed upon his mind. It 
came with so overpowering a force — it was 
such a new revelation to his spirit, of the 
depths in life, that had lain beyond his vision 
which he had fancied so keen and clear — 
that he was unable to ask a question. They 
sat mutely gazing at each other: Maggie with 
eyes of intense life looking out from a weary, 
beaten face — -Tom pale with a certain awe 
and humiliation. Thought was busy though 
the lips were silent: and though he could ask 
no question, he guessed a story of almost 
miraculous divinely-protected effort. But at 
last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes, 
and the lips found a word they could utter: 
the old childish — "Magsie!" 

Maggie could make no answer but a long 
deep sob of that mysterious wondrous happi- 
ness that is one with pain. 

As soon as she could speak, she said, "We 
will go to Lucy, Tom: we'll go and see if she 
is safe, and then we can help the rest." 

Tom rowed with untired vigour, and with 
a different speed from poor Maggie's. The 
boat was soon in the current of the river again, 
and soon they would be at Tofton. 

"Park House stands high up out of the 
flood," said Maggie. "Perhaps they have got 
Lucy there." 

Nothing else was said; a new danger was 
being carried towards them by the river. 
Some wooden machinery had just given way 
on one of the wharves, and huge fragments 
were being floated along. The sun was rising 
now, and the wide area of watery desolation 
was spread out in dreadful clearness around 
them — in dreadful clearness floated onwards 
the hurrying, threatening masses. A large 
company in a boat that was working its way 
along under the Tofton houses observed their 
danger, and shouted, "Get out of the current !" 

But that could not be done at once, and 
Tom, looking before him, saw death rushing 
on them. Huge fragments, clinging together 
in fatal fellowship, made one wide mass across 
the stream. 

"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a 
deep hoarse voice, loosing the oars, and clasp- 
ing her. 

The next instant the boat was no longer 
seen upon the water — and the huge mass 
was hurrying on in hideous triumph. 

But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a 
black speck on the golden water. 

The boat reappeared — but brother and 



sister had gone down in an embrace never to 
be parted: living through again in one su- 
preme moment the days when they had clasped 
their little hands in love, and roamed the 
daisied fields together. 



JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900) 

THE STONES OF VENICE 

VOL. II. CHAP. I. 

The Throne 

§ I. In the olden days of travelling, now . 
to return no more, in which distance could 
not be vanquished without toil, but in which 
that toil was rewarded, partly by the power, 
of deliberate survey of the countries through 
which the journey lay, and partly by the 
happiness of the evening hours, when, from 
the top of the last hill he had surmounted, the 
traveller beheld the quiet village where he was 
to rest, scattered among the meadows beside 
its valley stream ; or, from the long hoped for 
turn in the dusty perspective of the causeway, 
saw, for the first time, the towers of some 
famed city, faint in the rays of sunset — hours 
of peaceful and thoughtful pleasure, for which 
the rush of the arrival in the railway station is 
perhaps not always, or to all men, an equiva- 
lent: in those days, I say, when there was 
something more to be anticipated and remem- 
bered in the first aspect of each successive 
halting-place, than a new arrangement of glass 
roofing and iron girder, there were few moments 
of which the recollection was more fondly 
cherished by the traveller, than that which, as 
I endeavoured to describe in the close of the 
last chapter, brought him within sight of 
Venice, as his gondola shot into the open 
lagoon from the canal of Mestre. Not but 
that the aspect of the city itself was generally 
the source of some slight disappointment, for, 
seen in this direction, its buildings are far 
less characteristic than those of the other great 
towns of Italy; but this inferiority was partly 
disguised by distance, and more than atoned 
for by the strange rising of its walls and towers 
out of the midst, as it seemed, of the deep sea, 
for it was impossible that the mind or the eye 
could at once comprehend the shallowness of 
the vast sheet of water which stretched away 
in leagues of rippling lustre to the north and 
south, or trace the narrow line of islets bound- 
ing it to the east. The salt breeze, the white 



464 



JOHN RUSKIN 



moaning sea-birds, the masses of black weed 
separating and disappearing gradually, in knots 
of heaving shoal, under the advance of the 
steady tide, all proclaimed it to be indeed the 
ocean on whose bosom the great city rested 
so calmly; not such blue, soft, lake-like ocean 
as bathes the Neapolitan promontories, or 
sleeps beneath the marble rocks of Genoa, but 
a sea with the bleak power of our own northern 
waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious 
rest, and changed from its angry pallor into a 
field of burnished gold, as the sun declined 
behind the belfry tower of the lonely island 
church, fitly named "St. George of the Sea- 
weed." As the boat drew nearer to the city 
the coast which the traveller had just left 
sank behind him into one long, low, sad- 
•coloured line, tufted irregularly with brush- 
wood and willows: but, at what seemed its 
northern extremity, the hills of Arqua rose in 
a dark cluster of purple pyramids, balanced 
on the bright mirage of the lagoon; two or 
three smooth surges of inferior hill extended 
themselves about their roots, and beyond 
these, beginning with the craggy peaks above 
Vicenza, the chain of the Alps girded the whole 
horizon to the north — a wall of jagged blue, 
here and there showing through its clefts a 
wilderness of misty precipices, fading far back 
into the recesses of Cadore, and itself rising 
and breaking away eastward, where the sun 
struck opposite upon its snow, into mighty 
fragments of peaked light, standing up behind 
the barred clouds of evening, one after an- 
other, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea, 
until the eye turned back from pursuing them, 
to rest upon the nearer burning of the cam- 
paniles of Murano, and on the great city, 
where it magnified itself along the waves, as 
the quick silent pacing of the gondola drew 
nearer and nearer. And at last, when its 
walls were reached, and the outmost of its 
untrodden streets was entered, not through 
towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a 
deep inlet between two rocks of coral in the 
Indian sea; when first upon the traveller's 
sight opened the long ranges of columned 
palaces — each with its black boat moored at 
the portal, each with its image cast down, be- 
neath its feet, upon that green pavement which 
every breeze broke into new fantasies of rich 
tessellation ; when first, at the extremity of 
the bright vista, the shadowy Rialto threw its 
colossal curve slowly forth from behind the 
palace of the Camerlenghi; that strange curve, 
so delicate, so adamantine, strong as a moun- 



tain cavern, graceful as a bow just bent; when 
first, before its moonlike circumference was all 
risen, the gondolier's cry, "Ah! Stali," struck 
sharp upon the ear, and the prow turned aside 
under the mighty cornices that half met over 
the narrow canal, where the plash of the 
water followed close and loud, ringing along 
the marble by the boat's side; and when at 
last that boat darted forth upon the breadth 
of silver sea, across which the front of the 
Ducal palace, flushed ■with its sanguine veins, 
looks to the snowy dome of Our Lady of 
Salvation, it was no marvel that the mind 
should be so deeply entranced by the visionary 
charm of a scene so beautiful and so strange, 
as to forget the darker truths of its history 
and its being. Well might it seem that such a 
city had owed her existence rather to the rod 
of the enchanter, than the fear of the fugitive; 
that the waters which encircled her had been 
chosen for the mirror of her state, rather than 
the shelter of her nakedness; and that all 
which in nature was wild or merciless — Time 
and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests 
— had been won to adorn her instead of to 
destroy, and might still spare, for ages to 
come, that beauty which seemed to have fixed 
for its throne the sands of the hour-glass as 
well as of the sea. 

§ II. And although the last few eventful 
years, fraught with change to the face of the 
whole earth, have been more fatal in their 
influence on Venice than the five hundred that 
preceded them; though the noble landscape 
of approach to her can now be seen no more, 
or seen only by a glance, as the engine slackens 
its rushing on the iron line ; and though many 
of her palaces are forever defaced, and many 
in desecrated ruins, there is still so much of 
magic in her aspect, that the hurried traveller, 
who must leave her before the wonder of that 
first aspect has been worn away, may still be 
led to forget the humility of her origin, and to 
shut his eyes to the depth of her desolation. 
They, at least, are little to be envied, in whose 
lua its the great charities of the imagination 
lie dead, and for whom the fancy has no 
power to repress the importunity of painful 
impressions, or to raise what is ignoble, and 
disguise what is discordant, in a scene so rich 
in its remembrances, so surpassing in its beauty. 
Hut for this work of the imagination there 
must be no permission during the task which 
is before us. The impotent feelings of ro- 
mance, so singularly characteristic of this cen- 
tury, may indeed gild, but never save, the 



TIIK STONES OF VENICE 



465 



remains of those mightier ages to which they 
are attached like climbing flowers; and they 
must be torn away from (lie magnificent frag- 
ments, if we would see them as they stood in 
their own strength. Those feelings, always as 
fruitless as they are fond, are in Venice not 
only incapable of protecting, but even of dis- 
cerning, the objects to which they ought to 
have been attached. The Venice of modern 
fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a 
mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream 
which the first ray of daylight must dissipate 
into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth 
remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sym- 
pathy, ever crossed that "Bridge of Sighs," 
which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of 
Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever 
saw that Rialto under which the traveller 
now passes with breathless interest: the statue 
which Byron makes Faliero address as of one 
of his great ancestors was erected to a soldier 
of fortune a hundred and fifty years after 
Faliero's death; and the most conspicuous 
parts of the city have been so entirely altered 
in the course of the last three centuries, that 
if Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be 
summoned from their tombs, and stood each 
on the deck of his galley at the entrance of 
the Grand Canal, that renowned entrance, 
the painter's favourite subject, the novelist's 
favourite scene, where the water first narrows 
by the steps of the Church of La Salute — 
the mighty Doges would not know in what 
spot of the world they stood, would literally 
not recognise one stone of the great city, for 
whose sake, and by whose ingratitude, their 
gray hairs had been brought down with bit- 
terness to the grave. The remains of their 
Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses 
which were the delight of the nation in its 
dotage; hidden in many a grass-grown court, 
and silent pathway, and lightless canal, where 
the slow waves have sapped their foundations 
for five hundred years, and must soon prevail 
over them forever. It must be our task to 
glean and gather them forth, and restore out 
of them some faint image of the lost city; 
more gorgeous a thousandfold than that which 
now exists, yet not created in the day-dream 
of the prince, nor by the ostentation of the 
noble, but built by iron hands and patient 
hearts, contending against the adversity of 
nature and the fury of man, so that its wonder- 
fulness cannot be grasped by the indolence of 
imagination, but only after frank inquiry into 
the true nature of that wild and solitary scene, 



whose restless tides and trembling sands did 
indeed shelter the birth of the city, but long 
denied her dominion. 

§ III. When the eye falls casually on a 
map of Europe, there is no feature by which 
it is more likely to be arrested than the strange 
sweeping loop formed by the junction of the 
Alps and Apennines, and enclosing the great 
basin of Lombardy. This return of the moun- 
tain chain upon itself causes a vast difference 
in the character of the distribution of its debris 
of its opposite sides. The rock fragments and 
sediments which the torrents on the north side 
of the Alps bear into the plains are distributed 
over a vast extent of country, and, though 
here and there lodged in beds of enormous 
thickness, soon permit the firm substrata to 
appear from underneath them ; but all the 
torrents which descend from the southern side 
of the High Alps, and from the northern slope 
of the Apennines, meet concentrically in the 
recess or mountain bay which the two ridges 
enclose; every fragment which thunder breaks 
out of their battlements, and every grain of 
dust which the summer rain washes from their 
pastures, is at last laid at rest in the blue 
sweep of the Lombardic plain; and that plain 
must have risen within its rocky barriers as 
a cup fills with wine, but for two contrary 
influences which continually depress, or dis- 
perse from its surface, the accumulation of the 
ruins of ages. 

§ IV. I will not tax the reader's faith in 
modern science by insisting on the singular 
depression of the surface of Lombardy, which 
appears for many centuries to have taken place 
steadily and continually; the main fact with 
which we have to do is the gradual transport, 
by the Po and its great collateral rivers, of 
vast masses of the finer sediment to the sea. 
The character of the Lombardic plains is 
most strikingly expressed by the ancient walls' 
of its cities, composed for the most part of 
large rounded Alpine pebbles alternating with 
narrow courses of brick; -and was curiously 
illustrated in 1848, by the ramparts of these 
same pebbles thrown up four or five feet high 
round every field, to check the Austrian cav- 
alry in the battle under the walls of Verona. 
The finer dust among which these pebbles are 
dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed into 
continual strength by the Alpine snow, so that, 
however pure their waters may be when they 
issue from the lakes at the foot of the great 
chain, they become of the colour and opacity 
of clay before they reach the Adriatic; the 



466 



JOHN RISK IN 



sediment which they bear is at once thrown 
down as they enter the sea, forming a vast 
belt of low land along the eastern coast of 
Italy. The powerful stream of the l'o of 
course builds forward the fastest; on eacli side 
of it, north and south, there is a tract of marsh, 
fed by more feeble streams, and less liable to 
rapid change than the delta of the central 
river. In one of these tracts is built Ravenna, 
and in the other Venice. 

§ V. What circumstances directed the pecul- 
iar arrangement of this great belt of sediment 
in the earliest times, it is not here the place to 
inquire. It is enough for us to know that 
from the mouths of the Adige to those of the 
Piave there stretches, at a variable distance 
of from three to live miles from the actual 
shore, a bank of sand, divided into long islands 
by narrow channels of sea. The s] >ace 1 >cl ween 
this bank and the true shore consists of the sedi- 
mentary deposits from these and other rivers, 
a great plain of calcareous mud, covered, in 
the neighbourhood of Venice, by the sea at 
high water, to the depth in most places of a 
foot or a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere 
exposed at low tide, but divided by an intricate 
net-work of narrow and winding channels, from 
which the sea never retires. In some places, 
according to the run of the currents, the land 
has risen into marshy islets, consolidated, 
some by art, and some by time, into ground 
firm enough to be built upon, or fruitful 
enough to be cultivated: in others, on the con- 
trary, it has not reached the sea level; so 
that, at the average low water, shallow lakelets 
glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of 
seaweed. In the midst of the Largest of these, 
increased in importance by the confluence of 
several large river channels towards one of the 
openings in the sea bank, the city of Venice 
itself is built, on a crowded cluster of islands; 
the various plots of higher ground which ap- 
pear to the north and south of this central 
cluster, have at different periods been also 
thickly inhabited, and now bear, according to 
their size, the remains of cities, villages, or iso- 
lated convents and churches, scattered among 
spaces of open ground, partly waste and en- 
cumbered by ruins, partly under cultivation for 
the supply of the metropolis. 

§ VI. The average rise and fall of the tide 
is about three feet (varying considerably with 
the seasons): but this fall, on so flat a shore, 
is enough to cause continual movement in the 
waters, and in the main canals to produce a 
reflux which frequently runs like a mill stream. 



At high water no land is visible for many 
miles to the north or south of Venice, except 
in the form of small islands crowned with 
towers or gleaming with villages: there is a 
channel, some three miles wide, between the 
city and the mainland, and some mile and a 
half wide between it and the sandy break- 
water called the Lido, which divides the lagoon 
from the Adriatic, but which is so low as 
hardly to disturb the impression of the city's 
having been built in the midst of the ocean, 
although the secret of its true position is partly, 
yet not painfully, betrayed by the clusters of 
piles set to mark the deep-water channels, 
which undulate far away in spotty chains like 
the studded backs of huge sea-snakes, and by 
the quick glittering of the crisped and crowded 
waves that flicker and dance before the strong 
winds upon the unlifted level of the shallow 
sea. But the scene is widely different at low 
tide. A fall of eighteen or twenty inches is 
enough to show ground over the greater part 
of the lagoon ; and at the complete ebb the 
city is seen standing in the midst of a dark 
plain of seaweed, of gloomy green, except 
only where the larger branches of the Brenta 
and its associated streams converge towards 
the port of the Lido. Through this salt and 
sombre plain the gondola and the fishing-boat 
advance by tortuous channels, seldom more 
than four or five feet deep, and often so choked 
with slime that the heavier keels furrow the 
bottom till their crossing tracks are seen 
through the clear sea water like the ruts upon 
a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes 
upon the ground at every stroke, or is en- 
tangled among the thick weed that fringes the 
banks with the weight of its sullen waves, 
leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of 
the exhausted tide. The scene is often pro- 
foundly oppressive, even at this day, when 
every plot of higher ground bears some frag- 
ment of fair building: but, in order to know 
what it was once, let the traveller follow in his 
boat at evening the windings of some unfre- 
quented channel far into the midst of the 
melancholy plain; let him remove, in his 
imagination, the brightness of the great city, 
that still extends itself in the distance, and the 
walls and towers from the islands that are 
near; and so wait, until the bright investiture 
and sweet warmth of the sunset are withdrawn 
from the waters, and the black desert of their 
shore lies in its nakedness beneath the night, 
pathless, comfortless, infirm, lost in dark 
languor and fearful silence, except where the 






Ill i: STONES OF VENICE 



467 



Ball runlets plash into the titleless pools, or 
the sea-birds flit from their margins with a 
questioning cry; and he will be enabled to 
enter in some sort into the horror of heart with 
which this solitude was anciently chosen by 
man for his habitation. They little thought, 
who lirsl drove the slakes into the sand, and 
Strewed the ocean reeds for their rest, that 
their children were to be the princes of that 
ocean, and their palaces its pride; and yet, in 
the great natural laws that rule that sorrowful 
wilderness, lei it be remembered what strange 
preparation had been made for the things 
which no human imagination could have fore- 
told, and how the whole existence and fortune 
of the Venetian nation were anticipated or 
compelled, by the setting of those bars and 
doors to the rivers and the sea. Had deeper 
currents divided their islands, hostile navies 
would again and again have reduced the rising 
city into servitude; had stronger surges beaten 
their shores, all the richness and refinement of 
the Venetian architecture must have been ex- 
changed for the walls and bulwarks of an 
ordinary sea-port. Had there been no tide, 
as in other parts of the Mediterranean, the 
narrow canals of the city would have become 
noisome, and the marsh in which it was built 
pestiferous. Mad the tide been only a foot or 
eighteen inches higher in its rise, the water- 
access to the doors of the palaces would have 
been impossible: even as it is, there is some- 
times a little difficulty, at the ebb, in landing 
without setting foot upon the lower and slippery 
steps; and the highest tides sometimes enter 
the courtyards, and overflow the entrance 
halls. Eighteen inches more of difference 
between the level of the flood and ebb would 
have rendered the doorsteps of every palace, 
at low water, a treacherous mass of weeds and 
limpets, and the entire system of water-car- 
riage for the higher classes, in their easy and 
daily intercourse, must have been done away 
with. The streets of the city would have been 
widened, its network of canals filled up, and 
all the peculiar character of the place and the 
people destroyed. 

§ VII. The reader may perhaps have felt 
some pain in the contrast between this faithful 
view of the site of the Venetian Throne, and 
the romantic conception of it which we ordi- 
narily form; but this pain, if he have felt it, 
ought to be more than counterbalanced by the 
value of the instance thus afforded to us at 
once of the inscrutableness and the wisdom of 
the ways of God. If, two thousand years ago, 



we had been permitted to watch the slow 
settling of the slime of those turbid rivers into 
the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its 
deep and fresh waters of the lifeless, impas- 
sable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we 
have understood the purpose with which those 
islands were shaped out of the' void, anil the 
torpid waters enclosed with their desolate 
walls of sand! How little could we have 
known, any more than of what now seems to 
us most distressful, dark, and objectless, the 
glorious aim which was then in the mind of 
Him in whose hands are all the corners of the 
earth ! how little imagined that in the laws 
which were stretching forth the gloomy mar- 
gins of those fruitless banks, and feeding the 
bitter grass among their shallows, there was 
indeed a preparation, and the only preparation 
possible, for the founding of a city which was 
to be set like a golden clasp on the girdle of 
the earth, to write her history on the white 
scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it in their 
thunder, and to gather and give forth, in world- 
wide pulsation, the glory of the West and of 
(he bast, from the burning heart of her Forti- 
tude and Splendour. 

CHAP. IV 

St. Mark's 

§ X. And now I wish that the reader, be- 
fore I bring him into St. Mark's Place, would 
imagine himself for a little time in a quiet 
English cathedral town, and walk with me to 
the west front of its cathedral. Let us go 
together up the more retired street, at the end 
of which we can see the pinnacles of one of 
the towers, and then through the low gray 
gateway, with its battlemented top and small 
latticed window in the centre, into the inner 
private-looking road or close, where nothing 
goes in but the carls of the tradesmen who 
supply the bishop and the- chapter, and where 
there are little shaven grass-plots, fenced in 
by neat rails, before old fashioned groups of 
somewhat diminutive and excessively trim 
houses, with little oriel and bay windows 
jutting out here and there, and deep wooden 
cornices and eaves painted cream colour and 
while, and small pore lies to their doors in the 
shape of cockle shells, or little, crooked, thick, 
indescribable wooden gables warped a little 
on one side; and so forward till we come to 
larger houses, also old fashioned, but of red 
brick, and with gardens behind them, and 



468 



JOHN RUSKIN 



fruit walls, which show here and there, among 
the nectarines, the vestiges of an old cloister 
arch or shaft, and looking in front on the 
cathedral square itself, laid out in rigid divi- 
sions of smooth grass and gravel walk, yet not 
uncheerful, especially on the sunny side where 
the canons' children are walking with their 
nurserymaids. And so, taking care not to 
tread on the grass, we will go along the straight 
walk to the west front, and there stand for a 
time, looking up at its deep-pointed porches 
and the dark places between their pillars 
where there were statues once, and where the 
fragments, here and there, of a stately figure 
are still left, which has in it the likeness of a 
king, perhaps indeed a king on earth, perhaps 
a saintly king long ago in heaven; and so, 
higher and higher up to the great mouldering 
wall of rugged sculpture and confused arcades, 
shattered, and gray, and grisly with heads of 
dragons and mocking fiends, worn by the rain 
and swirling winds into yet unseemlier shape, 
and coloured on their stony scales by the deep 
russet-orange lichen, melancholy gold; and 
so, higher still, to the bleak towers, so far 
above that the eye loses itself among the 
bosses of their traceries, though they are rude 
and strong, and only sees, like a drift of eddy- 
ing black points, now closing, now scattering, 
and now settling suddenly into invisible places 
among the bosses and flowers, the crowd of 
restless birds that fill the whole square with 
that strange clangour of theirs, so harsh and 
yet so soothing, like the cries of birds on a 
solitary coast between the cliffs and sea. 

§ XI. Think for a little while of that scene, 
and the meaning of all its small formalisms, 
mixed with its serene sublimity. Estimate its 
secluded, continuous, drowsy felicities, and 
its evidence of the sense and steady perform- 
ance of such kind of duties as can be regu- 
lated by the cathedral clock; and weigh the 
influence of those ark towers on all who have 
passed through the lonely square at their feet 
for centuries, and on all who have seen them 
rising far away over the wooded plain, or 
catching on their square masses the last rays 
of the sunset, when the city at their feet was 
indicated only by the mist at the bend of the 
river. And then let us quickly recollect that 
we are in Venice, and land at the extremity of 
the Calle Lunga San Moise, which may be 
considered as there answering to the secluded 
street that led us to our English cathedra] 
gateway. 

§ XII. We find ourselves in a paved alley, 



some seven feet wide where it is widest, full 
of people, and resonant with cries of itinerant 
salesmen — a shriek in their beginning, and 
dying away into a kind of brazen ringing, all 
the worse for its confinement between the high 
houses of the passage along which we have 
to make our way. Over-head an inextricable 
confusion of rugged shutters, and iron balconies 
and chimney flues pushed out on brackets to 
save room, and arched windows with project- 
ing sills of Istrian stone, and gleams of green 
leaves here and there where a fig-tree branch 
escapes over a lower wall from some inner 
cortile, leading the eye up to the narrow 
stream of blue sky high over all. On each 
side, a row of shops, as densely set as may 
be, occupying, in fact, intervals between the 
square stone shafts, about eight feet high, 
which carry the first floors: intervals of which 
one is narrow and serves as a door; the other 
is, in the more respectable shops, wainscotted 
to the height of the counter and glazed above, 
but in those of the poorer tradesmen left open 
to the ground, and the wares laid on benches 
and tables in the open air, the light in all 
cases entering at the front only, and fading 
away in a few feet from the threshold into a 
gloom which the eye from without cannot 
penetrate, but which is generally broken by a 
ray or two from a feeble lamp at the back 
of the shop, suspended before a print of the 
Virgin. The less pious shopkeeper sometimes 
leaves his lamp unlighted, and is contented 
with a penny print; the more religious one has 
his print coloured and set in a little shrine with 
a folded or figured fringe, with perhaps a 
faded flower or two on each side, and his 
lamp burning brilliantly. Here at the fruiterer's, 
where the dark -green water-melons are heaped 
upon the counter like cannon balls, the Ma- 
donna has a tabernacle of fresh laurel leaves; 
but the pewterer next door has let his lamp 
out, and there is nothing to be seen in his shop 
but the dull gleam of the studded patterns on 
the copper pans, hanging from his roof in the 
darkness. Next comes a "Vendita Frittole e 
Liquori," where the Virgin, enthroned in a 
very humble manner beside a tallow candle 
on a back shelf, presides over certain ambro- 
sial morsels of a nature too ambiguous to 
be defined or enumerated. But a few steps 
farther on, at the regular wine-shop of the 
calle, where we are offered "Vino Nostrani a 
Soldi 28.32," the Madonna is in great glory, 
enthroned above ten or a dozen large red 
casks of three-year-old vintage, and flanked 



THE STONES OF VENICE 



469 



by goodly ranks of bottles of Maraschino, 
and two crimson lamps; and for the evening, 
when the gondoliers will come to drink out, 
under her auspices, the money they have 
gained during the day, she will have a whole 
chandelier. 

§ XIII. A yard or two farther, we pass the 
hostelry of the Black Eagle, and, glancing as 
we pass through the square door of marble, 
deeply moulded, in the outer wall, we see the 
shadows of its pergola of vines resting on an 
ancient well, with a pointed shield carved on 
its side; and so presently emerge on the bridge 
and Campo San Moise, whence to the en- 
trance into St. Mark's Place, called the Bocca 
di Piazza (mouth of the square), the Vene- 
tian character is nearly destroyed, first by the 
frightful facade of San Moise, which we will 
pause at another time to examine, and then 
by the modernising of the shops as they near 
the piazza, and the mingling with the lower 
Venetian populace of lounging groups of Eng- 
lish and Austrians. We will push fast through 
them into the shadow of the pillars at the end 
of the "Bocca di Piazza," and then we forget 
them all ; for between those pillars there opens 
a great light, and, in the midst of it, as we 
advance slowly, the vast tower of St. Mark 
seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level 
field of chequered stones; and, on each side, 
the countless arches prolong themselves into 
ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and irregular 
houses that pressed together above us in the 
dark alley had been struck back into sudden 
obedience and lovely order, and all their rude 
casements and broken walls had been trans- 
formed into arches charged with goodly sculp- 
ture, and fluted shafts of delicate stone. 

§ XIV. And well may they fall back, for 
beyond those troops of ordered arches there 
rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great 
square seems to have opened from it in a 
kind of awe, that we may see it far away — a 
multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered 
into a long low pyramid of coloured light; a 
treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and 
partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed 
beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled 
with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of 
alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as 
ivory — sculpture fantastic and involved, of 
palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pome- 
granates, and birds clinging and fluttering 
among the branches, all twined together into 
an endless network of buds and plumes; and, 
in the midst of it, the solemn forms of angels, 



sceptred, and robed to the feet, and leaning to 
each other across the gates, their figures in- 
distinct among the gleaming of the golden 
ground through the leaves beside them, inter- 
rupted and dim, like the morning light as it 
faded back among the branches of Eden, 
when first its gates were angel-guarded long 
ago. And round the walls of the porches 
there are set pillars of variegated stones, 
jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpen- 
tine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, 
that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, 
Cleopatra-like, "their bluest veins to kiss" — 
the shadow, as it steals back from them, re- 
vealing line after line of azure undulation, as 
a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their 
capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted 
knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acan- 
thus and vine, and mysticaf signs, all beginning 
and ending in the Cross; and above them, in 
the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of 
language and of life — angels, and the signs of 
heaven, and the labours of men, each in its 
appointed season upon the earth; and above 
these, another range of glittering pinnacles, 
mixed with white arches edged with scarlet 
flowers — a confusion of delight, amidst which 
the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blaz- 
ing in their breadth of golden strength, and 
the St. Mark's Lion, lifted on a blue field cov- 
ered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, 
the crests of the arches break into a marble 
foam, and toss themselves far into the blue 
sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, 
as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been 
frost-bound before they fell, and the sea- 
nymphs had inlaid them with coral and 
amethyst. 

Between that grim cathedral of England 
and this, what an interval ! There is a type 
of it in the very birds that haunt them; for, 
instead of the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced 
and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper 
air, the St. Mark's porches are full of doves, 
that nestle among the marble foliage, and 
mingle the soft iridescence of their living 
plumes, changing at every motion, with the 
tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood un- 
changed for seven hundred years. 

§ XV. And what effect has this splendour 
on those who pass beneath it? You may 
walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro, before 
the gateway of St. Mark's, and you will not 
see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance 
brightened by it. Priest and layman, soldier 
and civilian, rich and poor, pass by it alike 



17° 



JOHN RUSKIN 



regardlessly. Up to the very recesses of the 
porches, the meanesl tradesmeo of the city 
push their counters; nay, the foundations of 
its pillars are themselves the seals no) "of 
them that sell doves" for sacrifice, bul of the 
vendors of toys and caricatures. Round the 
whole square in fronl of the church there is 
almost a continuous line of cafe's, where the 
idle Venetians of the middle classes lounge, 

and read empty journals; in its centre the 

Austrian bands play during the time of vespers, 
their martial music jarring with the organ 
notes the march drowning the miserere, 
ami the sullen crowd thickening round them — 
a crowd, which, if ii had iis will, would stiletto 
(Mis soldier that pipes to it. And in the 
recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of 
men of the lowest classes, unemployed and 

listless, lie basking in the sun like hards; 

and unregarded children every heavy glance 

of their young eves lull of desperation and 
Stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with 
Cursing gamble, and fight, and snarl, and 
sleep, hour alter hour, dashing their hruised 

centesimi upon the marble ledges of the 
church porch. And the Images of Christ and 

His angels look down upon it eonlinuallv. 
CHAP \ 

B'V w i im P vi ICES 

§ X\\. Sneh, then, was that lust and 

fairest Venice which rose out of the barren- 
ness of the lagoon, and the sorrow of her 

people; a city of graceful areades and gleam 
ing walls, veined with azure and warm with 
gold, and fretted with white seulpture like 

frost upon forest branches turned to marble. 

\\\<\ \et, in this beauty of her youth, she was 
no eity of thoughtless pleasure. There was 
still a sadness of heart upon her, and a depth 
oi devotion, in which lav all her Strength. 1 

Ao not insist upon the probable religious sig 
nification oi many oi the sculptures whieh are 
now difficult of interpretation; hut the temper 

whieh made the eross the principal ornament 
of every building is not to he misunderstood, 

nor can we fail to perceive, in many of the 
minor seulptural subjects, meanings perfectly 

familiar to tin- mind oi early Christianity. 

The peacock, used in preference to everj 
other bird, is the well known symbol of the 

resurrection; ami, when drinking from a 
fountain or from a font, is, I doubt not, also a 

type of the new life received in faithful bap- 



tism. The vine, used in preference to all 
other tree's, was equally recognised as, in all 

Cases, a type either of Christ Himself or oi 
those who were in a stale of visible or pro- 
fessed union with Him. The dove, at its foot, 

represents the coming of the Comforter; and 
even the groups of contending animals had, 
probably, a distinct and universally appre- 
hended reference to the powers of evil. But 1 

lav no stress on these more OCCult meanings. 

Tin- principal circumstance which marks the 

seriousness of the early Venetian mind is per- 
haps the last in whieh the reader would sup- 
pose it was traceable that love of bright 
and pme colour whieh, in a modified form, 

was afterwards the root of all the triumph of 
the Venetian schools of painting, hut whieh, 
in its utmost simplicity, was characteristic of 
the Byzantine period only; and of whieh, 

therefore, in the close of our review of lhat 
period, it will he well that we should truly 

estimate the significance. The fad is, we 

none of us enough appreciate the nohleness 
and sacrednesS of colour. Nothing is more 
Common than to hear it spoken of as a suh- 

ordinate beauty nay, even as the mere 

Source of a sensual pleasure; and we might 
almost believe that we were daily among men 

who 

Could strip, for aught the prospect yields 
To them, their verdure from the fields; 

Ami Like the i.uli.uue from the clouds 

With v\liiih the sun his setting shrouds. 

Hut it is not so. Such expressions are used 
for tin- most part in thoughtlessness; and if 
the speakers would only take the pains to 
imagine what the world and their own exist- 
ence would become, if tin- blue were taken 
from the sky, and the gold from the sunshine, 
and the verdure from the leaves, and the 
crimson from the blood which is the life of 
man, llie llush from die cheek, the darkness 
from the eve, the radiance from the hair if 
they could hut see, for an instant, white human 
creatures living in a white world they would 
soon feel what they owe to colour. The tact 
is, that, of all God's gifts to the sight of man, 
colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most 
solemn. We speak rashly of gay colour and 
sad colour, for colour cannot at once be •\ood 
and gay. All good colour is in some degree 
pensive, the loveliest is melancholy, and the 
purest and most thoughtful minds are those 
which love colour the most. 






THE STONES OF VENICE 



471 



§ XXXI. I know that this will sound 
strange in many ears, and will be especially 
Startling to those who have considered the 
subject chiefly with reference to painting; 
for the great Venetian schools of colour are 
not usually understood to be either pure or 
pensive, and the idea of its preeminence is 
associated in nearly every mind with the 
coarseness of Rubens, and the sensualities of 
Correggio and Titian. But a more compre- 
hensive view of art will soon correct this im- 
pression. It will be discovered, in the first 
place, that the more faithful and earnest the 
religion of the painter, the more pure and prev- 
alent is the system of his colour. It will be 
found, in the second place, that where colour 
becomes a primal intention with a painter 
otherwise mean or sensual, il instantly elevates 
him, and becomes the one sacred and saving 
element in his work. The very depth of the 
Stoop to which the Venetian painters and 
Rubens sometimes condescend, is a conse- 
quence of their Feeling confidence in the power 
of their colour to keep them from falling. 
They hold on by it, as by a chain let down 
from heaven, with one hand, though they may 
Sometimes seem to gather dust and ashes 
with the other. Ami, in the last place, it 
will be found that so surely as a painter is irre- 
ligious, thoughtless, or obscene in disposition, 
so surely is his colouring cold, gloomy, and 
valueless. The opposite poles of art in this 
respect are Fra Angelico and Salvator Rosa; 
of whom the one was a man who smiled 
seldom, wept often, prayed constantly, and 
never harboured an impure thought. His pic- 
tures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, 
the colours of the draperies being perfectly 
pure, as various as those of a painted window, 
chastened only by paleness and relieved upon 
a gold ground. Salvator was a dissipated 
jester and satirist, a man who spent his life 
in masquing and revelry, lint his pictures arc 
full of horror, and their colour is for the most 
part gloomy gray. Truly it would seem as if art 
bad so much of eternity in it, that it must take 
its dye from the close rather than the course of 
life: "In such laughter the heart of man is sor- 
rowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness." 

§ XXXII. These are no singular instances. 
I know no law more severely without excep- 
tion than this of the connection of pure colour 
with profound and noble thought. The late 
Flemish pictures, shallow in conception and 
obscene in subject, are always sober in colour. 
But the early religious painting of the Flemings 



is as brilliant in hue as il is holy in thought. 
The Bellinis, Francias, Peruginos painted in 
crimson, and blue, and gold. The ('araccis, 
Guidos, and RembrandtS in brown and gray. 
The builders of our great cathedrals veiled 
their casements and wrapped their pillars with 
one robe of purple splendour. The builders 
of the luxurious Renaissance left their palaces 
filled only with cold white light, and in the 
paleness of their native stone. 

§ XXX1I1. Nor does it seem difficult to 
discern a noble reason for this universal law. 
In that heavenly circle which binds the statutes 
of colour upon the front of (he sky, when it 
became the sign of the covenant of peace, the 
pure hues of divided lighl were sanctified to 
the human heart forever; nor this, it would 
seem, by mere arbitrary appointment, but in 
Consequence of the fore ordained and mar 
velloUS constitution of those hues into a seven 
fold, or, more strictly still, a threefold order, 
typical of (he Divine nature itself. Observe 
also, the name Shem, or Splendour, given to 
that son of Noah in whom this covenant with 
mankind was to be fulfilled, and see how that 
name was justified by every one of the Asiatic- 
races which descended from him. Not with- 
out meaning was the love of Israel to his 
chosen son expressed by the coat "of many 
colours"; not without deep sense of the 
sac redness of that symbol of purity, did the 
lost daughter of David tear it from her breast: 
"With such robes were the king's daughters 
that were virgins apparelled" (2 Samuel, xiii, 
18). We know it to have been by Divine 
command that the Israelite, rescued from 
servitude, veiled the tabernacle with its rain of 
purple and scarlet, while the under sunshine 
Hashed through the- fall of the colour from its 
tenons of gold: but was it less by Divine 
guidance that the Medc, as he struggled out 
of anarchy, encompassed his king with the 
sevenfold burning of the battlements of Ecbat- 
ana? — of which one circle was golden like 
the sun, and another silver like the moon; 
and then came the great sacred chord of 
Colour, blue, purple, and scarlet ; and then a 
circle white like the day, and another dark, 
like night; so that the city rose like a great 
mural rainbow, a sign of peace amidst the 
contending of lawless races, and guarded, with 
colour and shadow, that seemed to symbolise 
the great order which rules over Day, and 
Night, and Time, the first organisation of the 
mighty statutes the law of the- Mcdes and 
Persians, that altereth not. 



472 



JOHN RUSKIN 



§ XXXIV. Let us not dream that it is ow- 
ing to the accidents of tradition or educa- 
tion that those races possess the supremacy 
over colour which has always been felt, though 
but lately acknowledged among men. How- 
ever their dominion might be broken, their 
virtue extinguished, or their religion defiled, 
they retained alike the instinct and the power; 
the instinct which made even their idolatry 
more glorious than that of others, bursting 
forth in fire-worship from pyramid, cave, and 
mountain, taking the stars for the rulers of its 
fortune, and the sun for the God of its life; 
the i lower which so dazzled and subdued the 
rough crusader into forgetfulness of sorrow and 
of shame, that Europe put on the splendour 
which she had learnt of the Saracen, as her 
sackcloth of mourning for what she suffered 
from his sword — the power which she con- 
fesses to this day, in the utmost thoughtless- 
ness of her pride, or her beauty, as it treads 
the costly carpet, or veils itself with the varie- 
gated Cachemire; and in the emulation of the 
concourse of her workmen, who but a few 
months back, perceived, or at least admitted, 
for the first time, the preeminence which has 
been determined from the birth of mankind, 
and on whose charter Nature herself has set 
a mysterious seal, granting to the Western 
races, descended from that son of Noah whose 
name was Extension, the treasures of the 
sullen rock, and stubborn ore, and gnarled 
forest, which were to accomplish their destiny 
across all distance of earth and depth of sea, 
while she matured the jewel in the sand, and 
rounded the pearl in the shell, to adorn the 
diadem of him whose name was Splendour. 

§ XXXV. And observe, farther, how in the 
Oriental mind a peculiar seriousness is asso- 
ciated with this attribute of the love of colour; 
a seriousness rising out of repose, and out of 
the depth and breadth of the imagination, as 
contrasted with the activity, and consequent 
capability of surprise, and of laughter, char- 
acteristic of the Western mind: as a man on 
a journey must look to his steps always, and 
view things narrowly and quickly; while one 
at rest may command a wider view, though 
an unchanging one, from which the pleasure 
he receives must be one of contemplation, 
rather than of amusement or surprise. Wher- 
ever the pure Oriental spirit manifests itself 
definitely, I believe its work is serious; and 
the meeting of the influences of the Eastern 
and Western races is perhaps marked in 
Europe more by the dying away of the gro- 



tesque laughter of the Goth than by any other 
sign. I have more to say on this head in 
other places of this volume; but the point I 
wish at present to impress upon the reader is, 
that the bright hues of the early architecture 
of Venice were no sign of gaiety of heart, and 
that the investiture with the mantle of many 
colours by which she is known above all other 
cities of Italy and of Europe, was not granted 
to her in the fever of her festivity, but in the 
solemnity of her early and earnest religion. 
She became in after times the revel of the 
earth, the masque of Italy; and therefore is 
she now desolate: but her glorious robe of 
gold and purple was given her when she rose 
a vestal from the sea, not when she became 
drunk with the wine of her fornication. 

§ XXXVI. And we have never yet looked 
with enough reverence upon the separate gift 
which was thus bestowed upon her; we have 
never enough considered what an inheritance 
she has left us, in the works of those mighty 
painters who were the chief of her children. 
That inheritance is indeed less than it ought 
to have been, and other than it ought to have 
been ; but before Titian and Tintoret arose — 
the men in whom her work and her glory 
should have been together consummated — ■ 
she had already ceased to lead her sons in the 
way of truth and life, and they erred much, 
and fell short of that which was appointed for 
them. There is no subject of thought more 
melancholy, more wonderful, than the way in 
which God permits so often His best gifts to 
be trodden under foot of men, His richest 
treasures to be wasted by the moth, and the 
mightiest influences of His Spirit, given but once 
in the world's history, to be quenched and 
shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I 
do not wonder at what men Suffer, but I won- 
der often at what they Lose. We may see 
how good rises out of pain and evil; but the 
dead, naked, eyeless loss, what good comes of 
that? The fruit struck to the earth before its 
ripeness; the glowing life and goodly purpose 
dissolved away in sudden death ; the words, 
half-spoken, choked upon the lips with clay 
forever; or, stranger than all, the whole 
majesty of humanity to its fulness, and every 
gift and power necessary for a given purpose, 
at a given moment, centred in one main, and 
all this perfected blessing permitted to be 
refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by 
those who need it most — the city which is 
Not set on a hill, the candle that giveth light 
to None that are in the house — these are the 






THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE 



473 



heaviest mysteries of this strange world, and, 
it seems to me, those which mark its curse 
the most. And it is true that the power with 
which this Venice had been entrusted, was per- 
verted, when ai its highest, in a thousand 
miserable ways: still, it was possessed by her 
alone; to her all hearts have turned which 
could be moved by its manifestation, and none 
without being made stronger and nobler by 
what her hand had wrought. That mighty 
Landscape, of dark mountains that guard the 
horizon with their purple towers, and solemn 
forests, that gather their weight of leaves, 
bronzed with sunshine, not with age, into those 
gloomy masses fixed in heaven, which storm 
and frost have power no more to shake, or 
shed — that mighty Humanity, so perfect and 
so proud, that hides no weakness beneath the 
mantle, and gains no greatness from the 
diadem; the majesty of thoughtful form, on 
which the dust of gold and flame of jewels 
are dashed as the sea-spray upon the rock, 
and still the great Manhood seems to stand 
bare against the blue sky — that mighty 
Mythology, which fills the daily walks of men 
with spiritual companionship and beholds the 
protecting angels break with their burning 
presence through the arrow-flights of battle: 
measure the compass of that field of creation, 
weigh the value of the inheritance that Venice 
thus left to the nations of Europe, and then 
judge if so vast, so beneficent a power could 
indeed have been rooted in dissipation or 
decay. It was when she wore the ephod of 
the priest, not the motley of the masquer, that 
the fire fell upon her from heaven; and she 
saw the first rays of it through the rain of her 
own tears, when, as the barbaric deluge ebbed 
from the hills of Italy, the circuit of her palaces, 
and the orb of her fortunes, rose together, like 
the Iris, painted upon the Cloud. 

From THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE 

Preface 

Twenty years ago, there was no lovelier 
piece of lowland scenery in South England, nor 
any more pathetic in the world, by its expression 
of sweet human character and life, than that 
immediately bordering on the sources of the 
Wandle, and including the lower moors of 
Addington, and the villages of Beddington and 
Carshalton, with all their pools and streams. 
No clearer or diviner waters ever sang with 
constant lips of the hand which "giveth rain 



from heaven"; no pastures ever lightened 
in spring time with more passionate blossoming; 
no sweeter homes ever hallowed the heart of the 
passer-by with their pride of peaceful gladness 
— fain-hidden — yet full-confessed. The place 
remains, or, until a few months ago, remained, 
nearly unchanged in its larger features; but, 
with deliberate mind I say, that I have never 
seen anything so ghastly in its inner tragic 
meaning, — not in Pisan Maremma, — not by 
Campagna torn)), — not by the sand-isles of 
the Torcellan shore, — as the slow stealing of 
aspects of reckless, indolent, animal neglect, over 
the delicate sweetness of that English scene: nor 
is any blasphemy or impiety — any frantic 
saying or godless thought — more appalling to 
me, using the best power of judgment I have to 
discern its sense and scope, than the insolent 
defilings of those springs by the human herds 
that drink of them. Just where the welling 
of stainless water, trembling and pure, like a 
body of light, enters the pool of Carshalton, 
cutting itself a radiant channel down to the 
gravel, through warp of feathery weeds, all 
waving, which it traverses with its deep threads 
of clearness, like the chalcedony in moss-agate, 
starred here and there with while grenouillette; 
just in the very rush and murmur of the first 
spreading currents, the human wretches of the 
place cast their street and house foulness; 
heaps of dust and slime, and broken shreds of 
old metal, and rags of putrid clothes; they 
having neither energy to cart it away, nor 
decency enough to dig it into the ground, thus 
shed into the stream, to diffuse what venom of 
it will float and melt, far away, in all places 
where God meant those waters to bring joy 
and health. And, in a little pool, behind some 
houses farther in the village, where another 
spring rises, the shattered stones of the well, 
and of the little fretted channel which was long 
ago built and traced for it by gentler hands, 
lie scattered, each from each, under a ragged 
bank of mortar, and scoria; and bricklayers' 
refuse, on one side, which the clean water 
nevertheless chastises to purity; but it cannot 
conquer the dead earth beyond; and there, 
circled and coiled under festering scum, the 
stagnant edge of the pool effaces itself into a 
slope of black slime, the accumulation of 
indolent years. Half-a-dozen men, with one 
day's work, could cleanse those pools, and trim 
the flowers about their banks, and make every 
breath of summer air above them rich with cool 
balm; and every glittering wave medicinal, as 
if it ran, troubled of angels, from the porch of 



474 



JOHN RUSKIN 



Bethesda. But that day's work is never given, 
nor will be; nor will any joy be possible to 
heart of man, for evermore, about those wells 
of English waters. 

When I last left them, I walked up slowly 
through the back streets of Croydon, from the 
old church to the hospital; and, just on the 
left, before coming up to the crossing of the 
High Street, there was a new public-house 
built. And the front of it was built in so wise 
manner, that a recess of two feet was left be- 
low its front windows, between them and the 
street -pavement — a recess too narrow for any 
possible use (for even if it had been occupied 
by a seat, as in old time it might have been, 
everybody walking along the street would have 
fallen over the legs of the reposing wayfarers). 
But, by way of making this two feet depth of 
freehold land more expressive of the dignity 
of an establishment for the sale of spirituous 
liquors, it was fenced from the pavement by an 
imposing iron railing, having four or five spear- 
heads to the yard of it, and six feet high; con- 
taining as much iron and iron-work, indeed, as 
could well be put into the space; and by this 
stately arrangement, the little piece of dead 
ground within, between wall and street, became 
a protective receptacle of refuse; cigar ends, 
and oyster shells, and the like, such as an open- 
handed English street-populace, habitually 
scatters from its presence, and was thus left, 
unsweepable by any ordinary methods. Now 
the iron bars which, uselessly (or in great 
degree worse than uselessly), enclosed this bit 
of ground, and made it pestilent, represented 
a quantity of work which would have cleansed 
the Carshalton pools three times over; — of 
work partly cramped and deadly, in the mine; 
partly fierce and exhaustive, at the furnace, 
partly foolish and sedentary, of ill-taught stu- 
dents making bad designs: work from the 
beginning to the last fruits of it, and in all the 
branches of it, venomous, deathful, and miser- 
able. Now, how did it come to pass that this 
work was done instead of the other; that the 
strength and life of the English operative were 
spent in defiling ground, instead of redeeming 
it; and in producing an entirely (in that place) 
valueless piece of metal, which can neither be 
eaten nor breathed, instead of medicinal fresh 
air, and pure water? 

There is but one reason for it, and at pres- 
ent a conclusive one, — that the capitalist can 
charge percentage on the work in the one case, 
and cannot in the other. If, having certain 
funds for supporting labour at my disposal, I 



pay men merely to keep my ground in order, 
my money is, in that function, spent once for 
all; but if I pay them to dig iron out of my 
ground, and work it, and sell it, I can charge 
rent for the ground, and percentage both on the 
manufacture and the sale, and make my capital 
profitable in these three by-ways. The greater 
part of the profitable investment of capital, in 
the present day, is in operations of this kind, in 
which the public is persuaded to buy something 
of no use to it, on production, or sale, of which, 
the capitalist may charge percentage; the said 
public remaining all the while under the per- 
suasion that the percentage thus obtained are 
real national gains, whereas, they are merely 
filchings out of partially light pockets, to swell 
heavy ones. 

Thus, the Croydon publican buys the iron 
railing, to make himself more conspicuous to 
drunkards. The public-housekeeper on the 
other side of the way presently buys another 
railing, to out-raii him with. Both are, as to 
their relative attractiveness to customers of 
taste, just where they were before; but they 
have lost the price of the railings; which they 
must either themselves finally lose, or make their 
aforesaid customers of taste pay, by raising 
the price [of their beer, or adulterating it. 
Either the publicans, or their customers, are 
thus poorer by precisely what the capitalist 
has gained; and the value of the work itself, 
meantime, has been lost, to the nation; the 
iron bars in that form and place being wholly 
useless. It is this mode of taxation of the poor 
by the rich which is referred to in the text, in 
comparing the modern acquisitive power of 
capital with that of the lance and sword; the 
only difference being that the levy of black- 
mail in old times was by force, and is now by 
cozening. The old rider and reiver frankly 
quartered himself on the publican for the night; 
the modem one merely makes his lance into an 
iron spike, and persuades his host to buy it. 
One comes as an open robber, the other as a 
cheating peddler; but the result, to the injured 
person's pocket, is absolutely the same. Of 
course many useful industries mingle with, and 
disguise the useless ones; and in the habits 
of energy aroused by the struggle, there is a cer- 
tain direct good. It is far better to spend four 
thousand pounds in making a good gun, and 
then to blow it to pieces, than to pass life in 
idleness. Only do not let it be called "political 
economy." There is also a confused notion in 
the minds of many persons, that the gathering 
of the property of the poor into the hands 









THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE 



475 



of the rich does no ultimate harm; since, in 
whosesoever hands it may be, it must be spent 
at last, and thus, they think, return to the poor 
again. This fallacy has been again and again 
exposed; but grant the plea true, and the same 
apology may, of course, be made for black- 
mail, or any other form of robbery. It might 
be (though practically it never is) as advanta- 
geous for the nation that the robber should have 
the spending of the money he extorts, as that 
the person robbed should have spent it. But 
this is no excuse for the theft. If I were to put 
a turnpike on the road where it passes my own 
gate, and endeavour to exact a shilling from every 
passenger, the public would soon do away with 
my gate, without listening to any plea on my 
part that "it was as advantageous to them, in 
the end, that I should spend their shillings, as 
that they themselves should." But if, instead 
of outfacing them with a turnpike, I can only 
persuade them to come in and buy stones, or 
old iron, or any other useless thing, out of my 
ground, I may rob them to the same extent, and 
be, moreover, thanked as a public benefactor, 
and promoter of commercial prosperity. And 
this main question for the poor of England — 
for the poor of all countries — is wholly omitted 
in every common treatise on the subject of 
wealth. Even by the labourers themselves, 
the operation of capital is regarded only in its 
effect on their immediate interests; never in 
the far more terrific power of its appointment 
of the kind and the object of labour. It matters 
little, ultimately, how much a labourer is paid 
for making anything; but it matters fearfully 
what the thing is, which he is compelled to 
make. If his labour is so ordered as to produce 
food, and fresh air, and fresh water, no matter 
that his wages are low; — the food and fresh 
air and water will be at last there ; and he will 
at last get them. But if he is paid to destroy 
food and fresh air, or to produce iron bars 
instead of them, — the food and air will finally 
not be there, and he will not get them, to his 
great and final inconvenience. So that, con- 
clusively, in political as in household economy 
the great question is, not so much what money 
you have in your pocket, as what you will buy 
with it, and do with it. 

I have been long accustomed, as all men 
engaged in work of investigation must be, to 
hear my statements laughed at for years, before 
they are examined or believed; and I am 
generally content to wait the public's time. 
But it has not been without displeased surprise 
that I have found myself totally unable, as yet, 



by any repetition, or illustration, to force this 
plain thought into my readers' heads, — that 
the wealth of nations, as of men, consists in 
substance, not in ciphers; and that the real 
good of all work, and of all commerce, depends 
on the final worth of the thing you make, or get 
by it. This is a practical enough statement, 
one would think: but the English public has 
been so possessed by its modern school of 
economists with the notion that Business is 
always good, whether it be busy in mischief 
or in benefit ; and that buying and selling are 
always salutary, whatever the intrinsic worth 
of what you buy or sell, — that it seems im- 
possible to gain so much as a patient hearing 
for any inquiry respecting the substantial re- 
sult of our eager modern labours. I have never 
felt more checked by the sense of this impossi- 
bility than in arranging the heads of the follow- 
ing three lectures, which, though delivered at 
considerable intervals of time, and in different 
places, were not prepared without reference 
to each other. Their connection would, how- 
ever, have been made far more distinct, if I had 
not been prevented, by what I feel to be an- 
other great difficulty in addressing English 
audiences, from enforcing, with any decision, 
the common, and to me, the most important, 
part of their subjects. I chiefly desired (as 
I have just said) to question my hearers — 
operatives, merchants, and soldiers, as to the 
ultimate meaning of the business they had in 
hand; and to know from them what they ex- 
pected or intended their manufacture to come 
to, their selling to come to, and their killing to 
come to. That appeared the first point needing 
determination before I could speak to them with 
any real utility or effect. "You craftsmen — 
salesmen — swordsmen, — do but tell me clearly 
what you want ; then, if I can say anything to 
help you, I will; and if not, I will account 
to you as I best may for my inability." But 
in order to put this question into any terms, 
one had first of all to face the difficulty just 
spoken of — to me for the present insuper- 
able, — the difficulty of knowing whether to 
address one's audience as believing, or not 
believing, in any other world than this. For 
if you address any average modern English 
company as believing in an Eternal life, and 
endeavour to draw any conclusions, from this 
assumed belief, as to their present business, 
they will forthwith tell you that what you say is 
very beautiful, but it is not practical. If, on 
the contrary, you frankly address them as un- 
believers in Eternal life, and try to draw any 



47<5 



JOHN RUSKIN 



consequences from that unbelief, — they im- 
mediately hold you for an accursed person, 
and shake off the dust from their feet at you. 
And the more I thought over what I had got to 
say, the less I found I could say it, without some 
reference to this intangible or intractable part 
of the subject. It made all the difference, in 
asserting any principle of war, whether one 
assumed that a discharge of artillery would 
merely knead down a certain quantity of red 
clay into a level line, as in a brick field; or 
whether, out of every separately Christian- 
named portion of the ruinous heap, there went 
out, into the smoke and dead-fallen air of 
battle, some astonished condition of soul, un- 
willingly released. It made all the difference, 
in speaking of the possible range of commerce, 
whether one assumed that all bargains related 
only to visible property — or whether property, 
for the present invisible, but nevertheless real, 
was elsewhere purchasable on other terms. 
It made all the difference, in addressing a body 
of men subject to considerable hardship, and 
having to find some way out of it — whether 
one could confidently say to them, "My friends, 
— you have only to die, and all will be right;" 
or whether one had any secret misgiving that 
such advice was more blessed to him that gave, 
than to him that took it. And therefore the 
deliberate reader will find, throughout these 
lectures, a hesitation in driving points home, 
and a pausing short of conclusions which he 
will feel I would fain have come to; hesitation 
which arises wholly from this uncertainty of 
my hearers' temper. For I do not now speak, 
nor have I ever spoken, since the time of first 
forward youth, in any proselyting temper, as 
desiring to persuade any one of what, in such 
matters, I thought myself; but, whomsoever 
I venture to address, I take for the time his 
creed as I find it ; and endeavour to push it into 
such vital fruit as it seems capable of. Thus, 
it is a creed with a great part of the existing 
English people, that they are in possession of a 
book which tells them, straight from the lips 
of God, all they ought to do, and need to know. 
I have read that book, with as much care as most 
of them, for some forty years; and am thankful 
that, on those who trust it, I can press its plead- 
ings. My endeavour has been uniformly to 
make them trust it more deeply than they do; 
trust it, not in their own favourite verses only, 
but in the sum of all ; trust it not as a fetich or 
talisman, which they are to be saved by daily 
repetitions of; but as a Captain's order, to be 
heard and obeyed at their peril. I was always 



encouraged by supposing my hearers to hold 
such belief. To these, if to any, I once had hope 
of addressing, with acceptance, words which 
insisted on the guilt of pride, and the futility 
of avarice; from these, if from any, I once 
expected ratification of a political economy, 
which asserted that the life was more than the 
meat, and the body than raiment; and these, 
it once seemed to me, I might ask, without ac- 
cusation of fanaticism, not merely in doctrine 
of the lips, but in the bestowal of their heart's 
treasure, to separate themselves from the crowd 
of whom it is written, "After all these things do 
the Gentiles seek." 

It cannot, however, be assumed, with any 
semblance of reason, that a general audience 
is now wholly, or even in majority, composed of 
these religious persons. A large portion must 
always consist of men who admit no such creed ; 
or who, at least, are inaccessible to appeals 
founded on it. And as, with the so-called 
Christian, I desired to plead for honest dec- 
laration and fulfilment of his belief in life, — 
with the so-called infidel, I desired to plead for 
an honest declaration and fulfilment of his 
belief in death. The dilemma is inevitable. 
Men must either hereafter live, or hereafter die ; 
fate may be bravely met, and conduct wisely 
ordered, on either expectation; but never in 
hesitation between ungrasped hope, and un- 
cos fronted fear. We usually believe in im- 
mortality, so far as to avoid preparation for 
death; and in mortality, so far as to avoid 
preparation for anything after death. Whereas, 
a wise man will at least hold himself prepared 
for one or other of two events, of which one or 
other is inevitable; and will have all things 
in order, for his sleep, or in readiness, for his 
awakening. 

Nor have we any right to call it an ignoble 
judgment, if he determine to put them in order, 
as for sleep. A brave belief in life is indeed an 
enviable state of mind, but, as far as I can dis- 
cern, an unusual one. I know few Christians 
so convinced of the splendour of the rooms in 
their Father's house, as to be happier when their 
friends are called to those mansions, than they 
would have been if the Queen had sent for them 
to live at court: nor has the Church's most 
ardent "desire to depart, and be with Christ," 
ever cured it of the singular habit of putting 
on mourning for every person summoned to 
such departure. On the contrary, a brave 
belief in death has been assuredly held by 
many not ignoble persons, and it is a sign of 
the last depravity in the Church itself, when it 



THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE 



477 



assumes that such a belief is inconsistent with 
either purity of character, or energy of hand. 
The shortness of life is not, to any rational 
person, a conclusive reason for wasting the 
space of it which may be granted him; nor 
does the anticipation of death to-morrow 
suggest, to any one but a drunkard, the ex- 
pediency of drunkenness to-day. To teach 
that there is no device in the grave, may indeed 
make the deviceless person more contented in 
his dulness; but it will make the deviser only 
more earnest in devising: nor is human con- 
duct likely, in every case, to be purer, under the 
conviction that all its evil may in a moment be 
pardoned, and all its wrong-doing in a moment 
redeemed; and that the sigh of repentance, 
which purges the guilt of the past, will waft 
the soul into a felicity which forgets its pain, — 
than it may be under the sterner, and to many 
not unwise minds, more probable, apprehension, 
that "what a man soweth that shall he also 
reap," — or others reap, — when he, the living 
seed of pestilence, walketh no more in dark- 
ness, but lies down therein. 

But to men whose feebleness of sight, or 
bitterness of soul, or the offence given by the 
conduct of those who claim higher hope, may 
have rendered this painful creed the only 
possible one, there is an appeal to be made, 
more secure in its ground than any which can 
be addressed to happier persons. I would 
fain, if I might offencelessly, have spoken to 
them as if none others heard; and have said 
thus: Hear me, you dying men, who will soon 
be deaf forever. For these others, at your 
right hand and your left, who look forward to 
a state of infinite existence, in which all their 
errors will be overruled, and all their faults 
forgiven ; for these, who, stained and blackened 
in the battle-smoke of mortality, have but to dip 
themselves for an instant in the font of death, 
and to rise renewed of plumage, as a dove that 
is covered with silver, and her feathers like 
gold; for these, indeed, it may be permissible 
to waste their numbered moments, through 
faith in a future of innumerable hours; to 
these, in their weakness, it may be conceded 
that they should tamper with sin which can 
only bring forth fruit of righteousness, and 
profit by the iniquity which, one day, will be 
remembered no more. In them, it may be no 
sign of hardness of heart to neglect the poor, 
over whom they know their Master is watching ; 
and to leave those to perish temporarily, who 
cannot perish eternally. But, for you, there is 
no such hope, and therefore no such excuse. 



This fate, which you ordain for the wretched, 
you believe to be all their inheritance; you 
may crush them, before the moth, and they will 
never rise to rebuke you ; — their breath, which 
fails for lack of food, once expiring, will never 
be recalled to whisper against you a word of 
accusing; — they and you, as you think, shall 
lie down together in the dust, and the worms 
cover you; — and for them there shall be no 
consolation, and on you no vengeance, — only 
the question murmured above your grave: 
"Who shall repay him what he hath done?" 
Is it therefore easier for you in your heart to 
inflict the sorrow for which there is no remedy? 
Will you take, wantonly, this little all of his 
life from your poor brother, and make his brief 
hours long to him with pain? Will you be 
readier to the injustice which can never be re- 
dressed; and niggardly of mercy which you 
can bestow but once, and which, refusing, you 
refuse forever? I think better of you, even of 
the most selfish, than that you would do this, 
well understood. And for yourselves, it seems 
to me, the question becomes not less grave, 
in these curt limits. If your life were but a 
fever fit, — the madness of a night, whose 
follies were all to be forgotten in the dawn, it 
might matter little how you fretted away the 
sickly hours, — what toys you snatched at, or let 
fall, — what visions you followed wistfully with 
the deceived eyes of sleepless phrenzy. Is the 
earth only an hospital? Play, if you care to 
play, on the floor of the hospital dens. Knit 
its straw into what crowns please you; gather 
the dust of it for treasure, and die rich in that, 
clutching at the black motes in the air with your 
dying hands; — and yet, it may be well with 
you. But if this life be no dream, and the world 
no hospital; if all the peace and power and joy 
you can ever win, must be won now; and all 
fruit of victory gathered here, or never; — will 
you still, throughout the puny totality of your 
life, weary yourselves in the fire for vanity? 
If there is no rest which remaineth for you, is 
there none you might presently take? was this 
grass of the earth made green for your shroud 
only, not for your bed? and can you never 
lie down upon it, and but only under it? The 
heathen, to whose creed you have returned, 
thought not so. They knew that life brought 
its contest, but they expected from it also the 
crown of all contest : No proud one ! no jewelled 
circlet flaming through Heaven above the height 
of the unmerited throne ; only some few leaves 
of wild olive, cool to the tired brow, through a 
few years of peace. It should have been of 



478 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



gold, they thought; but Jupiter was poor; this 
was the best the god could give them. Seeking 
a greater than this, they had known it a mockery. 
Not in war, not in wealth, not in tyranny, was 
there any happiness to be found for them — 
only in kindly peace, fruitful and free. The 
wreath was to be of wild olive, mark you : — 
the tree that grows carelessly; tufting the rocks 
with no vivid bloom, no verdure of branch; 
only with soft snow of blossom, and scarcely 
fulfilled fruit, mixed with gray leaf and thorn- 
set stem; no fastening of diadem for you but 
with such sharp embroidery! But this, such 
as it is, you may win while yet you live; type 
of gray honour and sweet rest. Free-hearted- 
ness, and graciousness, and undisturbed trust, 
and requited love, and the sight of the peace of 
others, and the ministry to their pain ; — these, 
and the blue sky above you, and the sweet 
waters and flowers of the earth beneath; and 
mysteries and presences, innumerable, of living 
things, — these may yet be here your riches; 
untormenting and divine; serviceable for the 
life that now is; nor, it may be, without prom- 
ise of that which is to come. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1 



From CULTURE AND ANARCHY 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 

The disparagers of culture make its motive 
curiosity; sometimes, indeed, they make its 
motive mere exclusiveness and vanity. The 
culture which is supposed to plume itself on a 
smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which 
is begotten by nothing so intellectual as cu- 
riosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity 
and ignorance or else as an engine of social 
and class distinction, separating its holder, like 
a badge or title, from other people who have 
not got it. No serious man would call this 
culture, or attach any value to it, as culture, at 
all. To find the real ground for the very 
different estimate which serious people will 
set upon culture, we must find some motive for 
culture in the terms of which may lie a real 
ambiguity; and such a motive the word curi- 
osity gives us. 

I have before now pointed out that we Eng- 
lish do not, like the foreigners, use this word 
in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. With 
us the word is always used in a somewhat dis- 
approving sense. A liberal and intelligent 
eagerness about the things of the mind may be 



meant by a foreigner when he speaks of cu- 
riosity, but with us the w-ord always conveys 
a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying 
activity. In the Quarterly Review, some little 
time ago, was an estimate of the celebrated 
French critic, M. Sainte-Beuve, and a very 
inadequate estimate it in my judgment was. 
And its inadequacy consisted chiefly in this: 
that in our English way it left out of sight 
the double sense really involved in the word 
curiosity, thinking enough was said to stamp 
M. Sainte-Beuve with blame if it was said that 
he was impelled in his operations as a critic 
by curiosity, and omitting either to perceive 
that M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other 
people with him, would consider that this was 
praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point 
out why it ought really to be accounted worthy 
of blame and not of praise. For as there is a 
curiosity about intellectual matters which is fu- 
tile, and merely a disease, so there is certainly 
a curiosity, — a desire after the things of the 
mind simply for their own sakes and for the 
pleasure of seeing them as they are, — which is, 
in an intelligent being, natural and laudable. 
Nay, and the very desire to see things as they 
are implies a balance and regulation of mind 
which is not often attained without fruitful 
effort, and which is the very opposite of the 
blind and diseased impulse of mind which 
is what we mean to blame when we blame cu- 
riosity. Montesquieu says: "The first motive 
which ought to impel us to study is the desire to 
augment the excellence of our nature, and to 
render an intelligent being yet more intelli- 
gent." This is the true ground to assign for 
the genuine scientific passion, however mani- 
fested, and for culture, viewed simply as a 
fruit of this passion; and it is a worthy ground, 
even though we let the term curiosity stand to 
describe it. 

But there is of culture another view, in which 
not solely the scientific passion, the sheer 
desire to see things as they are, natural and 
proper in an intelligent being, appears as the 
ground of it. There is a view in which all the 
love of our neighbour, the impulses toward 
action, help, and beneficence, the desire for 
removing human error, clearing human con- 
fusion, and diminishing human misery, the 
noble aspiration to leave the w r or!d better and 
happier than we found it, — motives eminently 
such as are called social, — come in as part 
of the grounds of culture, and the main and 
preeminent part. Culture is then properly de- 
scribed not as having its origin in curiosity, but 



CULTURE AND ANARCHY 



479 



as having its origin in the love of perfection; it 
is a study of perfection. It moves by the force, 
not merely or primarily of the scientific passion 
for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and 
social passion for doing good. As, in the first 
view of it, we took for its worthy motto Mon- 
tesquieu's words: "To render an intelligent 
being yet more intelligent!" so, in the second 
view of it, there is no better motto which it can 
have than these words of Bishop Wilson: "To 
make reason and the will of God prevail!" 

Only, whereas the passion for doing good is 
apt to be overhasty in determining what reason 
and the will of God say, because its turn is for 
acting rather than thinking and it wants to be 
beginning to act ; and whereas it is apt to take 
its own conceptions, which proceed from its 
own state of development and share in all the 
imperfections and immaturities of this, for a 
basis of action; what distinguishes culture is, 
that it is possessed by the scientific passion as well 
as by the passion of doing good ; that it demands 
worthy notions of reason and the will of God, 
and does not readily suffer its own crude 
conceptions to substitute themselves for them. 
And knowing that no action or institution can 
be salutary and stable which is not based on 
reason and the will of God, it is not so bent on 
acting and instituting, even with the great aim 
of diminishing human error and misery ever 
before its thoughts, but that it can remember that 
acting and instituting are of little use, unless we 
know how and what we ought to act and to 
institute. 

This culture is more interesting and more 
far-reaching than that other, which is founded 
solely on the scientific passion for knowing. 
But it needs times of faith and ardour, times 
when the intellectual horizon is opening and 
widening all round us, to flourish in. And is 
not the close and bounded intellectual horizon 
within which we have long lived and moved 
now lifting up, and are not new lights finding 
free passage to shine in upon us? For a long 
time there was no passage for them to make 
their way in upon us, and then it was of no use 
to think of adapting the world's action to them. 
Where was the hope of making reason and the 
will of God prevail among people who had a 
routine which they had christened reason and 
the will of God, in which they were inextricably 
bound, and beyond which they had no power 
of looking? But now the iron force of adhesion 
to the old routine, — social, political, religious 
— has wonderfully yielded ; the iron force of 
exclusion of all which is new has wonderfully 



yielded. The danger now is, not that people 
should obstinately refuse to allow anything but 
their old routine to pass for reason and the will 
of God, but either that they should allow some 
novelty or other to pass for these too easily, or 
else that they should underrate the importance 
of them altogether, and think it enough to follow 
action for its own sake, without troubling them- 
selves to make reason and the will of God pre- 
vail therein. Now, then, is the moment for 
culture to be of service, culture which believes 
in making reason and the will of God prevail, 
believes in perfection, is the study and pursuit 
of perfection, and is no longer debarred, by a 
rigid invincible exclusion of whatever is new, 
from getting acceptance for its ideas, simply 
because they are new. 

The moment this view of culture is seized, 
the moment it is regarded not solely as the 
endeavour to see things as they are, to draw 
towards a knowledge of the universal order 
which seems to be intended and aimed at in 
the world, and which it is a man's happiness 
to go along with or his misery to go counter to, 
— to learn, in short, the will of God, — the 
moment, I say, culture is considered not 
merely as the endeavour to sec and learn this, 
but as the endeavour, also, to make it prevail, 
the moral, social, and beneficent character of 
culture becomes manifest. The mere endeav- 
our to see and learn the truth for our own 
personal satisfaction is indeed a commence- 
ment for making it prevail, a preparing the 
way for this, which always serves this, and is 
wrongly, therefore, stamped with blame ab- 
solutely in itself and not only in its caricature 
and degeneration. But perhaps it has got 
stamped with blame, and disparaged with the 
dubious title of curiosity, because in comparison 
with this wider endeavour of such great and 
plain utility it looks selfish, petty, and unprofit- 
able. 

And religion, the greatest and most important 
of the efforts by which the human race has 
manifested its impulse to perfect itself, — re- 
ligion, that voice of the deepest human ex- 
perience, — does not only enjoin and sanction 
the aim which is the great aim of culture, the 
aim of setting ourselves to ascertain what per- 
fection is and to make it prevail; but also, in 
determining generally in what human per- 
fection consists, religion comes to a conclusion 
identical with that which culture, — culture 
seeking the determination of this question 
through all the voices of human experience 
which have been heard upon it, of art, science, 



48o 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



poetry, philosophy, history, as well as of re- 
ligion, in order to give a greater fulness and 
certainty to its solution, — likewise reaches. 
Religion says: The kingdom of God is within 
von ; and culture, in like manner, places human 
perfection in an internal condition, in the 
growth and predominance of our humanity 
proper, as distinguished from our animality. 
It places it in the ever-increasing efficacy and 
in the general harmonious expansion of those 
gifts of thought and feeling, which make the 
peculiar dignity, wealth, and happiness of 
human nature. As I have said on a former 
occasion: "It is in making endless additions 
to itself, in the endless expansion of its powers, 
in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that 
the spirit of the human race finds its ideal. 
To reach this ideal, culture is an indispensable 
aid, and that is the true value of culture." 
Not a having and a resting, but a growing 
and a becoming, is the character of perfection 
as culture conceives it; and here, too, it coin- 
cides with religion. 

And because men are all members of one 
great whole, and the sympathy which is in 
human nature will not allow one member to 
be indifferent to the rest or to have a perfect 
welfare independent of the rest, the expansion 
of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection 
which culture forms, must be a general expan- 
sion. Perfection, as culture conceives it, is 
not possible while the individual remains iso- 
lated. The individual is required, under pain 
of being stunted and enfeebled in his own 
development if he disobeys, to carry others 
along with him in his march towards perfection, 
to be continually doing all he can to enlarge 
and increase the volume of the human stream 
sweeping thitherward. And here, once more, 
culture lays on us the same obligation as reli- 
gion, which says, as Bishop Wilson has admi- 
rably put it, that "to promote the kingdom of 
God is to increase and hasten one's own hap- 
piness." 

But, finally, perfection, — as culture from 
a thorough disinterested study of human nature 
and human experience learns to conceive it, 
— is a harmonious expansion of all the powers 
which make the beauty and worth of human 
nature, and is not consistent with the over- 
development of any one power at the expense 
of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religion, 
as religion is generally conceived by us. 

If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and 
of harmonious perfection, general perfection, 
and perfection which consists in becoming 



something rather than in having something, in 
an inward condition of the mind and spirit, 
not in an outward set of circumstances, — it is 
clear that culture, instead of being the frivolous 
and useless thing which Mr. Bright, and Mr. 
'Frederic Harrison, and many other Liberals 
are apt to call it, has a very important function 
to fulfil for mankind. And this function is 
particularly important in our modern world, 
of which the whole civilisation is, to a much 
greater degree than the civilisation of Greece 
and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends 
constantly to become more so. But above all 
in our own country has culture a weighty part 
to perform, because here that mechanical char- 
acter, which civilisation tends to take every- 
where, is shown in the most eminent degree. 
Indeed nearly all the characters of perfection, 
as culture teaches us to fix them, meet in this 
country with some powerful tendency which 
thwarts them and sets them at defiance. The 
idea of perfection as an inward condition of the 
mind and spirit is at variance with the mechan- 
ical and material civilisation in esteem with us, 
and nowhere, as I have said, so much in esteem 
as with us. The idea of perfection as a general 
expansion of the human family is at variance 
with our strong individualism, our hatred of all 
limits to the unrestrained swing of the indi- 
vidual's personality, our maxim of "every man 
for himself." Above all, the idea of perfection 
as a harmonious expansion of human nature 
is at variance with our want of flexibility, with 
our inaptitude for seeing more than one side 
of a thing, with our intense energetic absorption 
in the particular pursuit we happen to be fol- 
lowing. So culture has a rough task to achieve 
in this country. Its preachers have, and are 
likely long to have, a hard time of it, and they 
will much oftener be regarded, for a great while 
to come, as elegant or spurious Jeremiahs than 
as friends and benefactors. That, however, 
will not prevent their doing in the end good 
service if they persevere. And, meanwhile, the 
mode of action they have to pursue, and the sort 
of habits they must fight against, ought to 
be made quite clear for every one to see, who 
may be willing to look at the matter attentively 
and dispassionately. 

Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting 
danger; often in machinery most absurdly dis- 
proportioned to the end which this machin- 
ery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve; 
but always in machinery, as if it had a value 
in and for itself. What is freedom but ma- 
chinery? what is population but machinery? 



CULTURE AND ANARCHY 



481 



what is coal but machinery? what are rail- 
roads but machinery? what is wealth but 
machinery? what are, even, religious organi- 
sations but machinery? Now almost every 
voice in England is accustomed to speak of 
these things as if they were precious ends in 
themselves, and therefore had some of the char- 
acters of perfection indisputably joined to them. 
I have before now noticed Mr. Roebuck's 
stock argument for proving the greatness and 
happiness of England as she is, and for quite 
stopping the mouths of all gainsayers. Mr. 
Roebuck is never weary of reiterating this argu- 
ment of his, so I do not know why I should be 
weary of noticing it. "May not every man in 
England say what he likes?" — Mr. Roebuck 
perpetually asks; and that, he thinks, is quite 
sufficient, and when every man may say what 
he likes, our aspirations ought to be satisfied. 
But the aspirations of culture, which is the 
study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless 
what men say, when they may say what they 
like, is worth saying, — has good in it, and 
more good than bad. In the same way the 
Times, replying to some foreign strictures on 
the dress, looks, and behaviour of the English 
abroad, urges that the English ideal is that 
every one should be free to do and to look just 
as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, 
not to make what each raw person may like 
the rule by which he fashions himself; but to 
draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed 
beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and to get 
the raw person to like that. 

And in the same way with respect to rail- 
roads and coal. Every one must have observed 
the strange language current during the late 
discussions as to the possible failure of our 
supplies of coal. Our coal, thousands of people 
were saying, is the real basis of our national 
greatness; if our coal runs short, there is an 
end of the greatness of England. But what 
is greatness ? — culture makes us ask. Great- 
ness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite 
love, interest, and admiration; and the out- 
ward proof of possessing greatness is that 
we excite love, interest, and admiration. If 
England were swallowed up by the sea to- 
morrow, which of the two, a hundred years 
hence, would most excite the love, interest, and 
admiration of mankind, — would most, there- 
fore, show the evidences of having possessed 
greatness, — the England of the last twenty 
years, or the England of Elizabeth, of a time 
of splendid spiritual effort, but when our coal, 
and our industrial operations depending on coal, 



were very little developed? Well, then, what 
an unsound habit of mind it must be which 
makes us talk of things like coal or iron as con- 
stituting the greatness of England, and how 
salutary a friend is culture, bent on seeing 
things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions 
of this kind and fixing standards of perfection 
that are real ! 

Wealth, again, that end to which our pro- 
digious works for material advantage are di- 
rected, — the commonest of commonplaces 
tells us how men are always apt to regard 
wealth as a precious end in itself; and cer- 
tainly they have never been so apt thus to regard 
it as they are in England at the present time. 
Never did people believe anything more firmly 
than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present 
day believe that our greatness and welfare are 
proved by our being so very rich. Now, the 
use of culture is that it helps us, by means of 
its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard 
wealth as but machinery, and not only to say 
as a matter of words that we regard wealth as 
but machinery, but really to perceive and feel 
that it is so. If it were not for this purging 
effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the 
whole world, the future as well as the present, 
would inevitably belong to the Philistines. 
The people who believe most that our great- 
ness and welfare are proved by our being very 
rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts 
to becoming rich, are just the very people whom 
we call Philistines. Culture says: "Consider 
these people, then, their way of life, their habits, 
their manners, the very tones of their voice; 
look at them attentively; observe the litera- 
ture they read, the things which give them 
pleasure, the words which come forth out of 
their mouths, the thoughts which make the 
furniture of their minds: would any amount 
of wealth be worth having with the condition 
that one was to become just like these people 
by having it?" And thus culture begets a dis- 
satisfaction which is of the highest possible 
value in stemming the common tide of men's 
thoughts in a wealthy and industrial commu- 
nity, and which saves the future, as one may 
hope, from being vulgarised, even if it cannot 
save the present. 

Population, again, and bodily health and 
vigour, are things which are nowhere treated 
in such an unintelligent, misleading, exagger- 
ated way as in England. Both are really ma- 
chinery; yet how many people all around us do 
we see rest in them and fail to look beyond 
them ! Why, one has heard people, fresh from 



482 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



reading certain articles of the Times on the 
Registrar-General's returns of marriages and 
births in this country, who would talk of our 
large English families in quite a solemn strain, 
as if they had something in itself beautiful, 
elevating, and meritorious in them; as if the 
British Philistine would have only to present 
himself before the Great Judge with his twelve 
children, in order to be received among the 
sheep as a matter of right ! 

But bodily health and vigour, it may be 
said, are not to be classed with wealth and 
population as mere machinery; they have 
a more real and essential value. True; but 
only as they are more intimately connected 
with a perfect spiritual condition than wealth 
or population are. The moment we disjoin 
them from the idea of a perfect spiritual con- 
dition, and pursue them, as we do pursue them, 
for their own sake and as ends in themselves, 
our worship of them becomes as mere worship 
of machinery, as our worship of wealth or pop- 
ulation, and as unintelligent and vulgarising 
a worship as that is. Every one with anything 
like an adequate idea of human perfection has 
distinctly marked this subordination to higher 
and spiritual ends of the cultivation of bodily 
vigour and activity. "Bodily exercise profit- 
eth little; but godliness is profitable unto all 
things," says the author of the Epistle to Tim- 
othy. And the utilitarian Franklin says just 
as explicitly: — "Eat and drink such an exact 
quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, 
in reference to the services of the mind." But 
the point of view of culture, keeping the mark 
of human perfection simply and broadly in 
view, and not assigning to this perfection, as 
religion or utilitarianism assigns to it, a special 
and limited character, this point of view, I say, 
of culture is best given by these words of 
Epictetus: — "It is a sign of d<£uia," says he, 
— that is, of a nature not finely tempered, — 
"to give yourselves up to things which relate 
to the body; to make, for instance, a great fuss 
about exercise, a great fuss about eating, a great 
fuss about drinking, a great fuss about walk- 
ing, a great fuss about riding. All these things 
ought to be done merely by the way: the for- 
mation of the spirit and character must be our 
real concern." This is admirable; and, in- 
deed, the Greek word evcjyvia, a finely tempered 
nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection 
as culture brings us to conceive it: a har- 
monious perfection, a perfection in which the 
characters of beauty and intelligence are both 
present, which unites "the two noblest of 



things," — as Swift, who of one of the two, 
at any rate, had himself all too little, most 
happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, — 
"the two noblest of things, sweetness and light." 
The ev<f>vr}<; is the man who tends towards 
sweetness and light; the d<£v?/s, on the other 
hand, is our Philistine. The immense spiritual 
significance of the Greeks is due to their having 
been inspired with this central and happy idea 
of the essential character of human perfection ; 
and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as 
a smattering of Greek and Latin, comes itself, 
after all, from this wonderful significance of the 
Greeks having affected the very machinery of 
our education, and is in itself a kind of homage 
to it. 

In thus making sweetness and light to be 
characters of perfection, culture is of like spirit 
with poetry, follows one law with poetry. 
Far more than on our freedom, our population, 
and our industrialism, many amongst us rely 
upon our religious organisations to save us. 
I have called religion a yet more important 
manifestation of human nature than poetry, 
because it has worked on a broader scale for 
perfection, and with greater masses of men. 
But the idea of beauty and of a human nature 
perfect on all its sides, which is the dominant 
idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, 
though it has not yet had the success that the 
idea of conquering the obvious faults of our 
animal ity, and of a human nature perfect on 
the moral side, — which is the dominant idea 
of religion, — has been enabled to have; and 
it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea 
of a devout energy, to transform and govern 
the other. 

The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in 
which religion and poetry are one, in which the 
idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect 
on all sides adds to itself a religious and devout 
energy, and works in the strength of that, is on 
this account of such surpassing interest and 
instructiveness for us, though it was, — as, 
having regard to the Greeks themselves, we 
must own, — a premature attempt, an attempt 
which for success needed the moral and reli- 
gious fibre in humanity to be more braced and 
developed than it had yet been. But Greece 
did not err in having the idea of beauty, har- 
mony, and complete human perfection, so 
present and paramount. It is impossible to 
have this idea too present and paramount; 
only, the moral fibre must be braced too. And 
we, because we have braced the moral fibre, 
are not on that account in the right way, if 



CULTURE AND ANARCHY 



483 



at the same time the idea of beauty, harmony, 
and complete human perfection, is wanting or 
misapprehended amongst us; and evidently 
it is wanting or misapprehended at present. 
And when we rely as we do on our religious 
organisations, which in themselves do not and 
cannot give us this idea, and think we have 
done enough if we make them spread and pre- 
vail, then, I say, we fall into our common fault 
of overvaluing machinery. 

Nothing is more common than for people 
to confound the inward peace and satisfaction 
which follows the subduing of the obvious 
faults of our animality with what I may call 
absolute inward peace and satisfaction, — the 
peace and satisfaction which are reached as 
we draw near to complete spiritual perfection, 
and not merely to moral perfection, or rather 
to relative moral perfection. No people in the 
world have done more and struggled more to 
attain this relative moral perfection than our 
English race has. For no people in the world 
has the command to resist the devil, to over- 
come the wicked one, in the nearest and most 
obvious sense of those words, had such a press- 
ing force and reality. And we have had our 
reward, not only in the great worldly prosperity 
which our obedience to this command has 
brought us, but also, and far more, in great 
inward peace and satisfaction. But to me few 
things are more pathetic than to see people, 
on the strength of the inward peace and sat- 
isfaction which their rudimentary efforts tow- 
ards perfection have brought them, employ, 
concerning their incomplete perfection and the 
religious organisations within which they have 
found it, language which properly applies only 
to complete perfection, and is a far-off echo 
of the human soul's prophecy of it. Religion 
itself, I need hardly say, supplies them in 
abundance with this grand language. And 
very freely do they use it; yet it is really the 
severest possible criticism of such an incom- 
plete perfection as alone we have yet reached 
through our religious organisations. 

The impulse of the English race towards 
moral development and self-conquest has no- 
where so powerfully manifested itself as in 
Puritanism. Nowhere has Puritanism found 
so adequate an expression as in the religious 
organisation of the Independents. The mod- 
ern Independents have a newspaper, the Non- 
conformist, written with great sincerity and 
ability. The motto, the standard, the pro- 
fession of faith which this organ of theirs 
carries aloft, is: "The Dissidence of Dissent 



and the Protestantism of the Protestant reli- 
gion." There is sweetness and light, and an 
ideal of complete harmonious human perfec- 
tion ! One need not go to culture and poetry 
to find language to judge it. Religion, with 
its instinct for perfection, supplies language to 
judge it, language, too, which is in our mouths 
every day. "Finally, be of one mind, united 
in feeling," says St. Peter. There is an ideal 
which judges the Puritan ideal: "The Dissi- 
dence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the 
Protestant religion!" And religious organi- 
sations like this are what people believe in, 
rest in, would give their lives for! Such, I say, 
is the wonderful virtue of even the beginnings 
of perfection, of having conquered even the 
plain faults of our animality, that the religious 
organisation which has helped us to do it can 
seem to us something precious, salutary, and 
to be propagated, even when it wears such a 
brand of imperfection on its forehead as this. 
And men have got such a habit of giving to the 
language of religion a special application, of 
making it a mere jargon, that for the condem- 
nation which religion itself passes on the short- 
comings of their religious organisations they 
have no ear; they are sure to cheat themselves 
and to explain this condemnation away. They 
can only be reached by the criticism which 
culture, like poetry, speaking a language not 
to be sophisticated, and resolutely testing these 
organisations by the ideal of a human perfection 
complete on all sides, applies to them. 

But men of culture and poetry, it will be 
said, are again and again failing, and failing 
conspicuously, in the necessary first stage to a 
harmonious perfection, in the subduing of the 
great obvious faults of our animality, which it 
is the glory of these religious organisations to 
have helped us to subdue. True, they do often 
so fail. They have often been without the 
virtues as well as the faults of the Puritan; 
it has been one of their dangers that they 
so felt the Puritan's faults that they too much 
neglected the practice of his virtues. I will 
not, however, exculpate them at the Puritan's 
expense. They have often failed in morality, 
and morality is indispensable. And they have 
been punished for their failure, as the Puritan 
has been rewarded for his performance. They 
have been punished wherein they erred; but 
their ideal of beauty, of sweetness and light, 
and a human nature complete on all its sides, 
remains the true ideal of perfection still; just 
as the Puritan's ideal of perfection remains 
narrow and inadequate, although for what he 



484 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



did well he has been richly rewarded. Not- 
withstanding the mighty results of the Pilgrim 
Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of 
perfection are rightly judged when we figure 
to ourselves Shakspeare or Virgil, — souls in 
whom sweetness and light, and all that in hu- 
man nature is most humane, were eminent, — 
accompanying them on their voyage, and think 
what intolerable company Shakspeare and 
Virgil would have found them ! In the same 
way let us judge the religious organisations 
which we see all around us. Do not let us 
deny the good and the happiness which they 
have accomplished; but do not let us fail to 
see clearly that their idea of human perfection 
is narrow and inadequate, and that the Dissi- 
dence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the 
Protestant religion will never bring humanity 
to its true goal. As I said with regard to 
wealth: Let us look at the life of those who 
live in and for it, — so I say with regard to 
the religious organisations. Look at the life 
imaged in such a newspaper as the Noncon- 
formist, — -a life of jealousy of the Establish- 
ment, disputes, tea -meetings, openings of 
chapels, sermons; and then think of it as an 
ideal of a human life completing itself on all 
sides, and aspiring with all its organs after 
sweetness, light, and perfection! 

Another newspaper, representing, like the 
Nonconformist, one of the religious organisa- 
tions of this country, was a short time ago 
giving an account of the crowd at Epsom on 
the Derby day, and of all the vice and hideous- 
ness which was to be seen in that crowd; and 
then the writer turned suddenly round upon 
Professor Huxley, and asked him how he pro- 
posed to cure all this vice and hideousness 
without religion. I confess I felt disposed to 
ask the asker this question: and how do you 
propose to cure it with such a religion as yours? 
How is the ideal of a life so unlovely, so un- 
attractive, so incomplete, so narrow, so far 
removed from a true and satisfying ideal of 
human perfection, as is the life of your religious 
organisation as you yourself reflect it, to con- 
quer and transform all this vice and hideous- 
ness? Indeed, the strongest plea for the study 
of perfection as pursued by culture, the clearest 
proof of the actual inadequacy of the idea of 
perfection held by the religious organisations, 
expressing, as I have said, the most wide 
spread effort which the human race has yet 
made after perfection, is to be found in the 
stati' of our life and society with these in pos- 
session of it, and having been in possession of 



it I know not how many hundred years. We 
are all of us included in some religious organi- 
sation or other; we all call ourselves, in the 
sublime and aspiring language of religion 
which I have before noticed, children of Hod. 
Children of God ; — it is an immense pretension ! 
— and how are we to justify it ? Bj the works 
which we do, and the words which we speak. 
And the work which we collective children of 
God do, our grand centre of life, our city which 
we have budded for us to dwell in, is London! 
London, with its unutterable external hideous- 
ness, and with its internal canker of publico 
egestas, privatim opulentia, — to use the words 
which Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about 
Rome, — unequalled in the world ! The word, 
again, which we children of God speak, the 
voice which most hits our collective thought, 
the newspaper with the largest circulation in 
England, nay, with the largest circulation in 
the whole world, is the Daily Tdegraphl I 
say that when our religious organisations, — 
which I admit to express the most considerable 
effort after perfection that our race has yet 
made, — land us in no better result than this, 
it is high time to examine carefully their idea 
of perfection, and to see whether it does not 
leave out of account sides and forces of human 
nature which we might turn to great use; 
whether it would not be more operative if it 
were more complete. And I say that the Eng- 
lish reliance on our religious organisations and 
on their ideas of human perfection just as they 
stand, is like our reliance on freedom, on mus- 
cular Christianity, on population, on coal, on 
wealth, — mere belief in machinery, and un- 
fruitful; and that it is wholesomely counter- 
acted by culture, bent on seeing things as they 
are, and on drawing the human race onwards 
to a more complete, a harmonious perfection. 
Culture, however, shows its single-minded 
love of perfection, its desire simply to make 
reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom 
from fanaticism, by its attitude towards all 
this machinery, even while it insists that it is 
machinery. Fanatics, seeing the mischief men 
do themselves by their blind belief in some 
machinery or other, — whether it is wealth 
and industrialism, or whether it is the culti- 
vation of bodily strength and activity, or 
whether it is a religious organisation, — oppose 
with might and main the tendency to this 
or that political and religious organisation, or to 
games and athletic exercises, or to wealth and 
industrialism, and try violently to stop it. 
Put the flexibility which sweetness and light 



CULTURE AND ANARCHY 



485 



give, and which is one of the rewards of culture 
pursued in good faith, enables a man to see 
that a tendency may be accessary, and even, 
as a preparation for something in the future, 
salutary, and yet that the generations or indi- 
viduals who obey this tendency are sacrificed 
to it, that they fall short of the hope of per- 
fection by following it; and that its mischiefs 
are to be criticised, lest it should take too firm 
a hold and last alter it has served its purpose. 
Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech 
at Paris, — and others have pointed out the 
same thing, — how necessary is the present 
great movement towards wealth and industrial- 
ism, in order to lay broad foundations of ma- 
terial well-being for the society of the future. 
The worst of these justifications is, that they are 
generally addressed to the very people engaged, 
body and soul, in the movement in question; 
at all events, that they are always seized with 
the greatest avidity by these people, and taken 
by them as epiite justifying their life; and that 
thus they tend to harden them in their sins. 
Now, culture admits the necessity of the move- 
ment towards fortune-making and exaggerated 
industrialism, readily allows that the future 
may derive benefit from it; but insists, at the 
same time, that the passing generations of in- 
dustrialists, — forming, for the most part, the 
stout main body of Philistinism, — are sacri- 
ficed to it. In the same way, the result of all 
the games and sports which occupy the passing 
generation of boys and young men may be the 
establishment of a better and sounder physical 
type for the future to work with. Culture docs 
not set itself against the games and sports; 
it congratulates the future, and hopes it will 
make a good use of its improved physical basis; 
but it points out that our passing generation 
of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed. 
Puritanism was perhaps necessary to develop 
the moral fibre of the English race, Noncon- 
formity to break the yoke of ecclesiastical 
domination over men's minds and to prepare 
the way for freedom of thought in the distant 
future; still, culture points out that the har- 
monious perfection of generations of Puritans 
and Nonconformists has been, in consequence, 
sacrificed. Freedom of speech may be neces- 
sary for the society of the future, but the young 
lions of the Daily Telegraph in the meanwhile 
are sacrificed. A voice for every man in his 
country's government may be necessary for 
the society of the future, but meanwhile Mr. 
Peak's and Mr. Brndlaugh are sacrificed. 
Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many 



faults; and she has heavily paid for them in 
defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the 
modern world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up 
amidst the beauty and sweetness of that beauti- 
ful place, have not failed to seize one truth, — 
the truth that beauty and sweetness are essen- 
tial characters of a complete human perfection. 
When 1 insist on this, I am all in the faith and 
tradition of Oxford. 1 say boldly that this our 
sentiment for beauty and sweetness, our senti- 
ment against hideousness and rawness, has 
been at the bottom of our attachment to so 
many beaten causes, of our opposition to so 
many triumphant movements. And the senti- 
ment is true, and has never been wholly de- 
feated, and has shown its power even in its 
defeat. We have not won our political battles, 
we have not carried our main points, we have 
not stopped our adversaries' advance, we have 
not marched victoriously with the modern 
world; but we have told silently upon the mind 
of the country, we have prepared currents 
of feeling which sap our adversaries' position 
when it seems gained, we have kept up our own 
communications with the future. Look at the 
course of the great movement which shook 
Oxford to its centre some thirty years ago! 
It was directed, as any one who reads Dr. 
Newman's Apology may see, against what in 
one word may be called "Liberalism." Liber- 
alism prevailed; it was the appointed force 
to do the work of the hour; it' was necessary, 
it was inevitable that it should prevail. The 
Oxford movement was broken, it failed; our 
wrecks are scattered on every shore : — 

Quae regio in tcrris nostri non plena laboris? 

But what was it, this liberalism, as Dr. Newman 
saw it, and as it really broke the Oxford move- 
ment ? it was the great middle-class liberalism, 
which had for the cardinal points of its belief 
the Reform Bill of 1832, and local self-govern- 
ment, in politics; in the social sphere, free- 
trade, unrestricted competition, and the mak- 
ing of large industrial fortunes; in the religious 
sphere, the Uissidence of Dissent and the 
Protestantism of the Protestant religion. I do 
not say that other and more intelligent forces 
than this were not opposed to the Oxford 
movement: but this was the force which really 
beat it; this was the force which Dr. Newman 
felt himself fighting with; this was the force 
which till only the other day seemed to be the 
paramount force in this country, and to be in 
possession of the future; this was the force 



4 86 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



whose achievements fill Mr. Lowe with such 
inexpressible admiration, and whose rule he 
was so horror-struck to see threatened. And 
where is this great force of Philistinism now? 
It is thrust into the second rank, it is become 
a power of yesterday, it has lost the future. A 
new power has suddenly appeared, a power 
which it is impossible yet to judge fully, but 
which is certainly a wholly different force from 
middle-class liberalism; different in its cardinal 
points of belief, different in its tendencies in 
every sphere. It loves and admires neither 
the legislation of middle-class Parliaments, 
nor the local self-government of middle-class 
vestries, nor the unrestricted competition of 
middle-class industrialists, nor the dissidence 
of middle-class Dissent and the Protestantism 
of middle-class Protestant religion. I am not 
now praising this new force, or saying that its 
own ideals are better; all I say is, that they are 
wholly different. And who will estimate how 
much the currents of feeling created by Dr. 
Newman's movement, the keen desire for 
beauty and sweetness which it nourished, the 
deep aversion it manifested to the hardness and 
vulgarity of middle-class liberalism, the strong 
light it turned on the hideous and grotesque 
illusions of middle-class Protestantism, — who 
will estimate how much all these contributed 
to swell the tide of secret dissatisfaction which 
has mined the ground under self-confident 
liberalism of the last thirty years, and has pre- 
pared the way for its sudden collapse and super- 
session? It is in this manner that the sentiment 
of Oxford for beauty and sweetness conquers, 
and in this manner long may it continue to 
conquer ! 

In this manner it works to the same end as 
culture, and there is plenty of work for it yet 
to do. I have said that the new and more 
democratic force which is now superseding 
our old middle-class liberalism cannot yet be 
rightly judged. It has its main tendencies 
still to form. We hear promises of its giving 
us administrative reform, law reform, reform 
of education, and I know not what; but those 
promises come rather from its advocates, wish- 
ing to make a good plea for it and to justify 
it for superseding middle-class liberalism, than 
from clear tendencies which it has itself yet 
developed. But meanwhile it has plenty of 
well-intentioned friends against whom culture 
may with advantage continue to uphold steadily 
its ideal of human perfection; that this is an 
inward spiritual activity, having for its char- 
acters increased sweetness, increased light, in- 



creased life, increased sympathy. Mr. Bright, 
who has a foot in both worlds, the world of 
middle-class liberalism and the world of 
democracy, but who brings most of his ideas 
from the world of middle-class liberalism in 
which he was bred, always inclines to inculcate 
that faith in machinery to which, as we have 
seen, Englishmen are so prone, and which has 
been the bane of middle-class liberalism. He 
complains with a sorrowful indignation of 
people who "appear to have no proper estimate 
of the value of the franchise"; he leads his dis- 
ciples to believe, — what the Englishman is 
always too ready to believe, — that the having 
a vote, like the having a large family, or a large 
business, or large muscles, has in itself some 
edifying and perfecting effect upon human 
nature. Or else he cries out to the democ- 
racy, — "the men," as he calls them, "upon 
whose shoulders the greatness of England 
rests," — he cries out to them: "See what you 
have done ! I look over this country and see 
the cities you have built, the railroads you have 
made, the manufactures you have produced, 
the cargoes which freight the ships of the great- 
est mercantile navy the world has ever seen ! 
I see that you have converted by your labours 
what was once a wilderness, these islands, into 
a fruitful garden ; I know that you have created 
this wealth, and are a nation whose name is 
a word of power throughout all the world." 
Why, this is just the very style of laudation with 
which Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Lowe debauches 
the minds of the middle classes, and makes 
such Philistines of them. It is the same fash- 
ion of teaching a man to value himself not on 
what he is, not on his progress in sweetness and 
light, but on the number of the railroads he has 
constructed, or the bigness of the tabernacles 
he has built. Only the middle classes are 
told they have done it all with their energy, 
self-reliance, and capital, and the democracy 
arc told they have done it all with their hands 
and sinews. But teaching the democracy to 
put its trust in achievements of this kind is 
merely training them to be Philistines to take 
the place of the Philistines whom they are 
superseding; and they too, like the middle 
class, will be encouraged to sit down at the 
banquet of the future without having on a 
wedding garment, and nothing excellent can 
then come from them. Those who know their 
besetting faults, those who have watched them 
and listened to them, or those who will read the 
instructive account recently given of them by 
one of themselves, the Journeyman Engineer, 






CULTURE AND ANARCHY 



487 



will agree that the idea which culture sets be- 
fore us of perfection, — an increased spiritual 
activity, having for its characters increased 
sweetness, increased light, increased life, in- 
creased sympathy, — is an idea which the new 
democracy needs far more than the idea of the 
blessedness of the franchise, or the wonderful- 
ness of its own industrial performances. 

Other well-meaning friends of this new 
power are for leading it, not in the old ruts of 
middle-class Philistinism, but in ways which 
are naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, 
though in this country they are novel and 
untried ways. I may call them the ways of 
Jacobinism. Violent indignation with the past, 
abstract systems of renovation applied whole- 
sale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and 
white for elaborating down to the very smallest 
details a rational society for the future, — these 
are the ways of Jacobinism. Mr. Frederic 
Harrison and other disciples of Comte, — one 
of them, Mr. Congreve, is an old friend of mine, 
and I am glad to have an opportunity of pub- 
licly expressing my respect for his talents and 
character, — are among the friends of democ- 
racy who are for leading it in paths of this 
kind. Mr. Frederic Harrison is very hostile to 
culture, and from a natural enough motive; 
for culture is the eternal opponent of the two 
things which are the signal marks of Jacobin- 
ism, — its fierceness, and its addiction to an 
abstract system. Culture is always assigning 
to system-makers and systems a smaller share 
in the bent of human destiny than their friends 
like. A current in people's minds sets towards 
new ideas; people are dissatisfied with their old 
narrow stock of Philistine ideas, Anglo-Saxon 
ideas, or any other; and some man, some 
Bentham or Comte, who has the real merit of 
having early and strongly felt and helped the 
new current, but who brings plenty of narrow- 
ness and mistakes of his own into his feeling 
and help of it, is credited with being the author 
of the whole current, the fit person to be en- 
trusted with its regulation and to guide the 
human race. 

The excellent German historian of the my- 
thology of Rome, Preller, relating the introduc- 
tion at Rome under the Tarquins of the wor- 
ship of Apollo, the god of light, healing, and 
reconciliation, will have us observe that it was 
not so much the Tarquins who brought to Rome 
the new worship of Apollo, as a current in the 
mind of the Roman people which set power- 
fully at that time towards a new worship of this 
kind, and away from the old run of Latin and 



Sabine religious ideas. In a similar way, 
culture directs our attention to the natural 
current there is in human affairs, and to its 
continual working, and will not let us rivet our 
faith upon any one man and his doings. It 
makes us see not only his good side, but also 
how much in him was of necessity limited 
and transient; nay, it even feels a pleasure, a 
sense of an increased freedom and of an ampler 
future, in so doing. 

I remember, when I was under the influence 
of a mind to which I feel the greatest obliga- 
tions, the mind of a man who was the very 
incarnation of sanity and clear sense, a man 
the most considerable, it seems to me, whom 
America has yet produced, — Benjamin Frank- 
lin, — I remember the relief with which, after 
long feeling the sway of Franklin's imperturb- 
able common -sense, I came upon a project of 
his for a new version of the Book of Job, to 
replace the old version, the style of which, says 
Franklin, has become obsolete, and thence less 
agreeable. "I give," he continues, "a few 
verses, which may serve as a sample of the 
kind of version I would recommend." We all 
recollect the famous verse in our translation : 
"Then Satan answered the Lord and said: 
' Doth Job fear God for nought?' " Franklin 
makes this: "Does your Majesty imagine that 
Job's good conduct is the effect of mere personal 
attachment and affection?" I well remember 
how, when first I read that, I drew a deep 
breath of relief, and said to myself: "After 
all, there is a stretch of humanity beyond 
Franklin's victorious good sense!" So, after 
hearing Bentham cried loudly up as the 
renovator of modern society, and Bentham's 
mind and ideas proposed as the rulers of our 
future, I open the Deontology. There I read: 
"While Xenophon was writing his history and 
Euclid teaching geometry, Socrates and Plato 
were talking nonsense under pretence of talking 
wisdom and morality. This morality of theirs 
consisted in words; this wisdom of theirs was 
the denial of matters known to every man's 
experience." From the moment of reading 
that, I am delivered from the bondage of 
Bentham ! the fanaticism of his adherents can 
touch me no longer. I feel the inadequacy 
of his mind and ideas for supplying the rule of 
human society, for perfection. 

Culture tends always thus to deal with the 
men of a system, of disciples, of a school ; with 
men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, or Mr. 
Mill. However much it may find to admire 
in these personages, or in some of them, it 



4 88 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



nevertheless remembers the text: "Be not ye 
called Rabbi!" and it soon passes on from 
any Rabbi. But Jacobinism loves a Rabbi; it 
does not want to pass on from its Rabbi in 
pursuit of a future and still unreached perfec- 
tion; it wants its Rabbi and his ideas to stand 
for perfection, that they may with the more 
authority recast the world; and for Jacobin- 
ism, therefore, culture, — eternally passing on- 
wards and seeking, — is an impertinence and 
an offence. But culture, just because it resists 
this tendency of Jacobinism to impose on us a 
man with limitations and errors of his own 
along with the true ideas of which he is the 
organ, really does the world and Jacobinism 
itself a service. 

So, too, Jacobinism, in its fierce hatred of the 
past and of those whom it makes liable for 
the sins of the past, cannot away with the in- 
exhaustible indulgence proper to culture, the 
consideration of circumstances, the severe 
judgment of actions joined to the merciful 
judgment of persons. "The man of culture 
is in politics," cries Mr. Frederic Harrison, 
"one of the poorest mortals alive!" Mr. 
Frederic Harrison wants to be doing business, 
and he complains that the man of culture stops 
him with a "turn for small fault-finding, love 
of selfish ease, and indecision in action." Of 
what use is culture, he asks, except for "a critic 
of new books or a professor of belles lettres"? 
Why, it is of use because, in presence of the 
fierce exasperation which breathes, or rather, 
I may say, hisses through the whole produc- 
tion in which Mr. Frederic Harrison asks that 
question, it reminds us that the perfection of 
human nature is sweetness and light. It is 
of use because, like religion, — that other 
effort after perfection, — it testifies that, where 
bitter envying and strife are, there is confusion 
and every evil work. 

The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pur- 
suit of sweetness and light. He who works 
for sweetness and light, works to make reason 
and the will of God prevail. He who works 
for machinery, he who works for hatred, works 
only for confusion. Culture looks beyond 
machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has 
one great passion, the passion for sweetness 
and light. It has one even yet greater ! — 
the passion for making them prevail. It is 
not satisfied till we all come to a perfect man ; 
it knows that the sweetness and light of the 
few must be imperfect until the raw and un- 
kindled masses of humanity are touched with 
sweetness and light. If I have not shrunk 



from saying that we must work for sweetness 
and light, so neither have I shrunk from saying 
that we must have a broad basis, must have 
sweetness and light for as many as possible. 
Again and again I have insisted how those are 
the happy moments of humanity, how those are 
the marking epochs of a people's life, how those 
are the flowering times for literature and art and 
all the creative power of genius, when there is 
a national glow of life and thought, when the 
whole of society is in the fullest measure per- 
meated by thought, sensible to beauty, intelli- 
gent and alive. Only it must be real thought 
and real beauty; real sweetness and real light. 
Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as 
they call them, an intellectual food prepared and 
adapted in the way they think proper for the 
actual condition of the masses. The ordinary 
popular literature is an example of this way of 
working on the masses. Plenty of people will 
try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of 
ideas and judgments constituting the creed 
of their own profession or party. Our reli- 
gious and political organisations give an ex- 
ample of this way of working on the masses. 
I condemn neither way; but culture works 
differently. It does not try to teach down to 
the level of inferior classes; it does not try to 
win them for this or that sect of its own, with 
ready-made judgments and watchwords. It 
seeks to do away with classes; to make the best 
that has been thought and known in the world 
current everywhere; to make all men live in an 
atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they 
may use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely, 
— nourished, and not bound by them. 

This is the social idea; and the men of cul- 
ture are the true apostles of equality. The 
great men of culture are those who have had 
a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, 
for carrying from one end of society to the 
other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of 
their time; who have laboured to divest know- 
ledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, 
abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanise 
it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the 
cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the 
best knowledge and thought of the time, and a 
true source, therefore, of sweetness and light. 
Such a man was Abelard in the Middle Ages, 
in spite of all his imperfections; and thence 
the boundless emotion and enthusiasm which 
Abelard excited. Such were Lessing and Her- 
der in Germany, at the end of the last cen- 
turv; and their services to Germany were in 
this way inestimably precious. Generations 



LESLIE STEPHEN 



489 



will pass, and literary monuments will accu- 
mulate, and works far more perfect than the 
works of Lessing and Herder will be produced 
in Germany; and yet the names of these two 
men will fill a German with a reverence and 
enthusiasm such as the names of the most 
gifted masters will hardly awaken. And why? 
Because they humanised knowledge; because 
they broadened the basis of life and intelli- 
gence; because they worked powerfully to dif- 
fuse sweetness and light, to make reason and 
the will of God prevail. With Saint Augustine 
they said: "Let us not leave thee alone to 
make in the secret of thy knowledge, as thou 
didst before the creation of the firmament, the 
division of light from darkness; let the children 
of thy spirit, placed in their firmament, make 
their light shine upon the earth, mark the 
division of night and day, and announce the 
revolution of the times; for the old order is 
passed, and the new arises; the night is spent, 
the day is come forth; and thou shalt crown 
the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt 
send forth labourers into thy harvest sown by 
other hands than theirs; when thou shalt send 
forth new labourers to new seedtimes, whereof 
the harvest shall be not yet." 

LESLIE STEPHEN (1832-1904) 

From NEWMAN'S THEORY OF BELIEF 

Some persons, it is said, still cherish the 
pleasant illusion that to write a history of 
thought is not, on the face of it, a chimerical 
undertaking. Their opinion implies the as- 
sumption that all contemporary thought has 
certain common characteristics, and that the 
various prophets, inspired by the spirit of this 
or any other age, utter complementary rather 
than contradictory doctrines. Could we attain 
the vantage-ground which will be occupied 
by our posterity, we might, of course, detect 
an underlying unity of purpose in the perplex- 
ing labyrinth of divergent intellectual parts. 
And yet, making all allowance for the distortions 
due to mental perspective when the objects of 
vision are too close to our eyes, it is difficult to 
see how two of the most conspicuous teachers 
of modern Englishmen are to be forced into 
neighbouring compartments of the same logi- 
cal framework. Newman and J. S. Mill were 
nearly contemporaries; they were probably 
the two greatest masters of philosophical 
English in recent times, and the mind of the 
same generation will bear the impress of their 



speculation. And yet they move in spheres 
of thought so different that a critic, judging 
purely from internal evidence, might be in- 
clined to assign them to entirely different 
periods. The distance from Oxford to West- 
minster would seem to be measurable rather 
in centuries than in miles. Oxford, as New- 
man says, was, in his time, a "mediaeval uni- 
versity." The roar of modern controversies 
was heard dimly, as in a dream. Only the 
vague rumours of portentous phantoms of 
German or English origin — Pantheism and 
neologies and rationalism — might occasionally 
reach the quiet cloisters where Aristotelian 
logic still reigned supreme. To turn from 
Newman's "Apologia" to Mill's "Autobiog- 
raphy" is, in the slang of modern science, to 
plunge the organism in a totally different en- 
vironment. With Newman we are knee-deep 
in the dust of the ancient fathers, poring over 
the histories of Eutychians, Monophysites, 
or Arians, comparing the teaching of Luther 
and Melanchthon with that of Augustine; 
and from such dry bones extracting — not the 
materials of antiquarian discussions or philo- 
sophical histories — but living and effective 
light for our own guidance. The terminal 
limit of our inquiries is fixed by Butler's 
"Analogy." Newman ends where Mill began. 
It was precisely the study of Butler's book 
which was the turning-point in the mental 
development of the elder Mill, and the cause 
of his son's education in entire ignorance of 
all that is generally called religion. The 
foundation-stone of Mill's creed is to New- 
man the great rock of offence; the atmosphere 
habitually breathed by the free-thinker was to 
the theologian as a mephitic vapour in which all 
that is pure and holy mentally droops and dies. 
But, for the most part, Newman would rather 
ignore than directly encounter this insidious 
evil. He will not reason with such, but pass 
them by with an averted glance. "Why," 
he asks, "should we vex ourselves to find out 
whether our own deductions are philosophical 
or no, provided they are religious?" 

That free play of the pure intellect, which 
with Mill is the necessary and sufficient guar- 
antee of all improvement of the race, forms, 
according to Newman, the inlet for an "all- 
corroding and all-dissolving" scepticism, the 
very poison of the soul ; for the intellect, when 
not subordinated to the conscience and en- 
lightened by authority, is doomed to a perpetuity 
of fruitless wandering. The shibboleths of 
Mill's creed are mentioned by Newman — 



49o 



LESLIE STEPHEN 



if mentioned at all — with unmixed aversion. 
Liberalism, foreshadowed by the apostate 
Julian, "is now Satan's chief instrument in 
deluding the nations;" and even toleration — 
though one fancies that here Newman is glad 
to find an expedient for reconciling his feelings 
to the logic which had once prompted him to 
less tolerant utterances — is a principle "con- 
ceived in the spirit of unbelief," though "provi- 
dentially overruled" for the advantage of 
Catholicism. 

For the most part, as I have said, the two 
writers are too far apart to have even the rela- 
tion of direct antagonism. But as both are 
profoundly interested in the bearing of their 
teaching upon conduct, they necessarily come 
into collision upon some vital questions. The 
contrast is instructive. Mill tells us that the 
study of Dumont's redaction of Bentham made 
him a different being. It was the dropping 
of the keystone into the arch of previously 
fragmentary belief. It gave him "a creed, a 
doctrine, a philosophy; in one among the best 
senses of the word, a religion ; the inculcation 
and diffusion of which would be made the prin- 
cipal outward purpose of a life." The pro- 
gress of the race would be henceforward his 
aim ; and the belief that such progress was a 
law of Nature could supply him with hope and 
animation. Here we have the characteristic 
divergence between the modes of thought na- 
tive to science and theology. Utilitarianism, 
when Newman happens to mention it, is, of 
course, mentioned as equivalent to Material- 
ism — the preference of temporal comfort to 
spiritual welfare. It prescribes as the ultimate 
end of all legislation the pursuit of "whatever 
tends to produce wealth." From Newman's 
point of view, it is less "a religion" than the 
antithesis of a religion, for the end which it 
proposes to men is, briefly, the sum-total of all 
the seductions by which the world attracts 
men from their allegiance to the Church. To 
emphasise and enforce this distinction, to show 
that the Christian morality tramples under foot 
and rejects as worthless all that the secular 
philosopher values as most precious, is the pur- 
pose of his subtlest logic and keenest rhetoric. 
The contrast between the prosperous self-sat- 
isfied denizen of this world and the genuine 
Christianity set forth in the types of the 
"humble monk, and the holy nun," is ever 
before him. In their "calm faces, and sweet 
plaintive voices, and spare frames, and gentle 
manners, and hearts weaned from the world," 
he sees the embodiment of the one true ideal. 



What common ground can there be between 
such Christianity and the religion of progress? 
"Our race's progress and perfectibility," he 
says, "is a dream, because revelation contra- 
dicts it." And even if there were no explicit 
contradiction, how could the two ideas coalesce ? 
The "foundation of all true doctrine as to the 
way of salvation" is the "great truth" of the 
corruption of man. His present nature is evil, 
not good, and produces evil things, not good 
things. His improvement, then, if he improves, 
must be supernatural and miraculous, not the 
spontaneous working of his natural tendencies. 
The very basis of rational hope of progress is 
therefore struck away. The enthusiasm which 
that hope generates in such a mind as Mill's 
is therefore mere folly — it is an empty exul- 
tation over a process which, when it really ex- 
ists, involves the more effectual weaning of the 
world from God. In his sermons, Newman 
aims his sharpest taunts at the superficial opti- 
mism of the disciples of progress. The popular 
religion of the day forgets the "darker, deeper 
views" (darker as deeper) "of man's condition 
and prospects." Conscience, the fundamental 
religious faculty, is a "stern, gloomy principle," 
and therefore systematically ignored by worldly 
and shallow souls. A phrase, quoted in the 
"Apologia" with some implied apology for its 
vehemence, is but a vivid expression of this 
sentiment. It is his "firm conviction that it 
would be a gain to this country were it vastly 
more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, 
more fierce in its religion, than at present it 
shows itself to be." The great instrument of 
his opponents is as objectionable as their end 
is futile and their temper shallow. The lovers 
of progress found their hopes on the influ- 
ence of illumination in dispelling superstition. 
"Superstition," replies Newman, "is better 
than your so-called illumination." Supersti- 
tion, in fact, differs from religion, not in the 
temper and disposition of mind which it in- 
dicates, but in the authority which it accepts; 
it is the blind man groping after the guiding 
hand vouchsafed to him in revelation. The 
world, when trying to turn to its Maker, has 
"ever professed a gloomy religion in spite of 
itself." Its sacrifices, its bodily tortures, its 
fierce delight in self-tormenting, testify to its 
sense of guilt and corruption. These "dark 
and desperate struggles" are superstition when 
set beside Christianity; but such superstition 
"is man's purest and best religion before the 
Gospel shines on him." To be gloomy, to 
see ourselves with horror, "to wait naked and 



NEWMAN'S THEORY OF BELIEF 



49 1 



shivering among the trees of the garden" . . . 
"in a word, to be superstitious is Nature's 
best offering, her most acceptable service, her 
most matured and enlarged wisdom, in pres- 
ence of a holy and offended God." 

The contrast is drawn out most systematically 
in two of the most powerful of the lectures on 
"Anglican Difficulties" (Nos. VIII and IX). 
They contain some of the passages which most 
vexed the soul of poor Kingsley, to whom the 
theory was but partly intelligible, and alto- 
gether abhorrent. They are answers to the 
ordinary objections that Catholicism is hostile 
to progress and favourable to superstition. 
Newman meets the objections — not by trav- 
ersing the statements, but by denying their 
relevancy. Catholic countries are, let us grant, 
less civilised than Protestant; what then? 
The office of the Church is to save souls, not 
to promote civilisation. As he had said whilst 
still a Protestant (for this is no theory framed 
under pressure of arguments, but a primitive 
and' settled conviction), the Church does not 
seek to make men good subjects, good citizens, 
good members of society, not, in short, to secure 
any of the advantages which the Utilitarian 
would place in the first rank, but to make them 
members of the New Jerusalem. The two ob- 
jects are so far from identical that they may 
be incompatible; nay, it is doubtful whether 
"Christianity has at any time been of any great 
spiritual advantage to the world at large." 
It has saved individuals, not reformed society. 
Intellectual enlightenment is beyond its scope, 
and often hurtful to its influence. So says the 
Protestant, and fancies that he has aimed a 
blow at its authority. Newman again accepts 
his statement without hesitation. In truth, 
Catholicism often generates mere superstition, 
and allies itself with falsehood, vice, and pro- 
fanity. What if it does? It addresses the 
conscience first, and the reason through the 
conscience. Superstition proves that the con- 
science is still alive. If divine faith is found in 
alliance, not merely with gross conceptions, but 
with fraud and cruelty, that proves not, as the 
Protestant would urge, that good Catholicism 
may sanction vice, but that even vice cannot 
destroy Catholicism. Faith lays so powerful 
a grasp upon the soul, that it survives even 
in the midst of moral and mental degradation, 
where the less rigorous creed of the Protestant 
would be asphyxiated. If the power of saving 
souls be the true test of the utility of a religion, 
that is not the genuine creed which makes men 
most decorous, but that which stimulates the 



keenest sensibility to the influences of the un- 
seen world. The hope of ultimate pardon 
may make murder more frequent, but it gives 
a better chance of saving the murderer's soul 
at the very foot of the gallows. 

Applying so different a standard, Newman 
comes to results shocking to those who would 
deny the possibility of thus separating natural 
virtue from religion. Such, for example, is 
the contrast between the pattern statesman, 
honourable, generous, and conscious by nature, 
and the lazy, slatternly, lying beggarwoman 
who has got a better chance of heaven, because 
in her may dwell a seed of supernatural faith; 
or the admiring picture of the poor nun who 
"points to God's wounds as imprinted on her 
hands and feet and side, though she herself 
has been instrumental in their formation." 
She is a liar or a hysterical patient, says blunt 
English common-sense, echoed by Kingsley; 
but Newman condones her offence in considera- 
tion of the lively faith from which it sprang. 
On his version, the contrast is one between 
the world and the Church, between care for the 
external and the transitory, and care for the 
enclosed and eternal. "We," he says, "come 
to poor human nature as the angels of God; 
you as policemen." Nature "lies, like Lazarus, 
at your gate, full of sores. You see it gasping 
and panting with privations and penalties; and 
you sing to it, you dance to it, you show it your 
picture-books, you let off your fireworks, you 
open your menageries. Shallow philosophers! 
Is this mode of going on so winning and persua- 
sive that we should imitate it?" We, in short, 
are the physicians of the soul; you, at best, 
the nurses of the body. 

Newman, so far, is the antithesis of Mill. 
He accepts that version of Christianity which 
is most diametrically opposed to the tendency 
of what is called modern thought. The Zeit- 
geist is a deluding spirit; he is an incarnation of 
the world, the flesh, and the devil. That two 
eminent thinkers should differ radically in their 
estimate of the world and its value, that the 
Church of one man's worship should be the 
prison of another man's reason, is not sur- 
prising. Temperament and circumstance, not 
logic, make the difference between a pessimist 
and an optimist, and social conditions have a 
more powerful influence than speculation in 
giving colour to the creeds of the day. Yet 
we may fairly ask for an explanation of the 
fact that one leader of men should express his 
conceptions by symbols which have lost all 
meaning for his contemporary. The doctrine 



492 



WALTER PATER 



which, to Mill, seemed hopelessly obsolete, had 
still enough vitality in the mind of Newman to 
throw out fresh shoots of extraordinary vigour 
of growth. To account for such phenomena 
by calling one system reactionary is to make the 
facts explain themselves. The stream is now 
flowing east because it was before flowing west : 
— Such a reason can only satisfy those who 
regard all speculation as consisting in a help- 
less and endless oscillation between antagonist 
creeds. To attempt any adequate explanation, 
however, would be nothing less than to write 
the mental history of the last half-century. 
A more limited problem may be briefly dis- 
cussed. What, we may ask, is the logic by 
which, in the last resort, Newman would justify 
his conclusions? The reasoning upon which 
he relies may be cause or effect; it may have 
prompted or been prompted by the ostensible 
conclusions; but, in any case, it may show us 
upon what points he comes into contact with 
other teachers. No one can quite cut himself 
loose from the conditions of the time; and it 
must be possible to find some point of inter- 
section between the two lines of thought, how- 
ever widely they may diverge. 



WALTER PATER (1839-1894) 
STYLE 

Since all progress of mind consists for the 
most part in differentiation, in the resolution 
of an obscure and complex object into its com- 
ponent aspects, it is surely the stupidest of 
losses to confuse things which right reason has 
put asunder, to lose the sense of achieved dis- 
tinctions, the distinction between poetry and 
prose, for instance, or, to speak more exactly, 
between the laws and characteristic excellences 
of verse and prose composition. On the other 
hand, those who have dwelt most emphatically 
on the distinction between prose and verse, 
prose and poetry, may sometimes have been 
tempted to limit the proper functions of prose 
too narrowly; and this again is at least false 
economy, as being, in effect, the renunciation of 
a certain means or faculty, in a world where 
after all we must needs make the most of things. 
Critical efforts to limit art a priori, by anticipa- 
tions regarding the natural incapacity of the 
material with which this or that artist works, 
as the sculptor with solid form, or the prose- 
writer with the ordinary language of men, are 
always liable to be discredited by the facts of 



artistic production ; and while prose is actually 
found to be a coloured thing with Bacon, 
picturesque with Livy and Carlyle, musical 
with Cicero and Newman, mystical and inti- 
mate with Plato and Michelet and Sir Thomas 
Browne, exalted or florid, it may be, with Mil- 
ton and Taylor, it will be useless to protest 
that it can be nothing at all, except something 
very tamely and narrowly confined to mainly 
practical ends — a kind of "good round-hand" ; 
as useless as the protest that poetry might not 
touch prosaic subjects as with Wordsworth, 
or an abstruse matter as with Browning, or 
treat contemporary life nobly as with Tenny- 
son. In subordination to one essential beauty 
in all good literary style, in all literature as a fine 
art, as there are many beauties of poetry so the 
beauties of prose are many, and it is the busi- 
ness of criticism to estimate them as such ; as 
it is good in the criticism of verse to look for 
those hard, logical, and quasi-prosaic excel- 
lences which that too has, or needs. To find 
in the poem, amid the flowers, the allusions, 
the mixed perspectives, of Lycidas for instance, 
the thought, the logical structure: — how 
wholesome ! how delightful ! as to identify 
in prose what we call the poetry, the imagina- 
tive power, not treating it as out of place and 
a kind of vagrant intruder, but by way of an 
estimate of its rights, that is, of its achieved 
powers, there. 

Dryden, with the characteristic instinct 
of his age, loved to emphasise the distinction 
between poetry and prose, the protest against 
their confusion with each other, coming with 
somewhat diminished effect from one whose 
poetry was so prosaic. In truth, his sense of 
prosaic excellence affected his verse rather 
than his prose, which is not only fervid, richly 
figured, poetic, as we say, but vitiated, all un- 
consciously, by many a scanning line. Setting 
up correctness, that humble merit of prose, as 
the central literary excellence, he is really a less 
correct writer than he may seem, still with 
an imperfect mastery of the relative pronoun. 
It might have been foreseen that, in the rota- 
tions of mind, the province of poetry in prose 
would find its assertor; and, a century after 
Dryden, amid very different intellectual needs, 
and with the need therefore of great modifica- 
tions in literary form, the range of the poetic 
force in literature was effectively enlarged by 
Wordsworth. The true distinction between 
prose and poetry he regarded as the almost 
technical or accidental one of the absence or 
presence of metrical beauty, or, say ! metrical 



STYLE 



493 



restraint; and for him the opposition came to 
be between verse and prose of course; but, as 
the essential dichotomy in this matter, between 
imaginative and unimaginative writing, parallel 
to De Quincey's distinction between "the liter- 
ature of power and the literature of knowledge," 
in the former of which the composer gives us 
not fact, but his peculiar sense of fact, whether 
past or present. 

Dismissing then, under sanction of Words- 
worth, that harsher opposition of poetry to 
prose, as savouring in fact of the arbitrary 
psychology of the last century, and with it the 
prejudice that there can be but one only beauty 
of prose style, I propose here to point out cer- 
tain qualities of all literature as a fine art, which, 
if they apply to the literature of fact, apply still 
more to the literature of the imaginative sense 
of fact, while they apply indifferently to verse 
and prose, so far as either is really imagina- 
tive — certain conditions of true art in both alike, 
which conditions may also contain in them the 
secret of the proper discrimination and guard- 
ianship of the peculiar excellences of either. 

The line between fact and something quite 
different from external fact is, indeed, hard to 
draw. In Pascal, for instance, in the persua- 
sive writers generally, how difficult to define 
the point where, from time to time, argument 
which, if it is to be worth anything at all, must 
consist of facts or groups of facts, becomes a 
pleading — a theorem no longer, but essentially 
an appeal to the reader to catch the writer's 
spirit, to think with him, if one can or will — 
an expression no longer of fact but of his 
sense of it, his peculiar intuition of a world, 
prospective, or discerned below the faulty con- 
ditions of the present, in either case changed 
somewhat from the actual world. In science, 
on the other hand, in history so far as it con- 
forms to scientific rule, we have a literary do- 
main where the imagination may be thought to 
be always an intruder. And as, in all science, 
the functions of literature reduce themselves 
eventually to the transcribing of fact, so all the 
excellences of literary form in regard to science 
are reducible to various kinds of painstaking; 
this good quality being involved in all "skilled 
work" whatever, in the drafting of an act of 
parliament, as in sewing. Yet here again, the 
writer's sense of fact, in history especially, and 
in all those complex subjects which do but lie 
on the borders of science, will still take the 
place of fact, in various degrees. Your his- 
torian, for instance, with absolutely truthful 
intention, amid the multitude of facts pre- 



sented to him must needs select, and in select- 
ing assert something of his own humour, some- 
thing that comes not of the world without but 
of a vision within. So Gibbon moulds his 
unwieldy material to a preconceived view. 
Livy, Tacitus, Michelet, moving full of poig- 
nant sensibility amid the records of the past, 
each, after his own sense, modifies — who can 
tell where and to what degree ? — and becomes 
something else than a transcriber; each, as he 
thus modifies, passing into the domain of art 
proper. For just in proportion as the writer's 
aim, consciously or unconsciously, comes to 
be the transcribing, not of the world, not of 
mere fact, but of his sense of it, he becomes an 
artist, his work fine art; and good art (as I 
hope ultimately to show) in proportion to the 
truth of his presentment of that sense; as in 
those humbler or plainer functions of literature 
also, truth — truth to bare fact, there — is the 
essence of such artistic quality as they may 
have. Truth ! there can be no merit, no craft 
at all, without that. And further, all beauty is 
in the long run on\y fineness of truth, or what 
we call expression, the finer accommodation of 
speech to that vision within. 

— The transcript of his sense of fact rather 
than the fact, as being preferable, pleasanter, 
more beautiful to the writer himself. In lit- 
erature, as in every other product of human 
skill, in the moulding of a bell or a platter for 
instance, wherever this sense asserts itself, 
wherever the producer so modifies his work 
as, over and above its primary use or inten- 
tion, to make it pleasing (to himself, of course, 
in the first instance) there, "fine" as opposed 
to merely serviceable art, exists. Literary art, 
that is, like all art which is in any way imitative 
or reproductive of fact — form, or colour, or 
incident — is the representation of such fact as 
connected with soul, of a specific personality, 
in its preferences, its volition and power. 

Such is the matter of imaginative or artistic 
literature — this transcript, not of mere fact, 
but of fact in its infinite variety, as modified 
by human preference in all its infinitely varied 
forms. It will be good literary art not because 
it is brilliant or sober, or rich, or impulsive, or 
severe, but just in proportion as its representa- 
tion of that sense, that soul-fact, is true, verse 
being only one department of such literature, 
and imaginative prose, it may be thought, 
being the special art of the modern world. 
That imaginative prose should be the special 
and opportune art of the modern world results 
from two important facts about the latter: 



494 



WALTER PATER 



first, the chaotic variety and complexity of its 
interests, making the intellectual issue, the 
really master currents of the present time 
incalculable — a condition of mind little sus- 
ceptible of the restraint proper to verse form, 
so that the most characteristic verse of the 
nineteenth century has been lawless verse ; and 
secondly, an all-pervading naturalism, a curi- 
osity about everything whatever as it really is, 
involving a certain humility of attitude, cognate 
to what must, after all, be the less ambitious 
form of literature. And prose thus asserting 
itself as the special and privileged artistic faculty 
of the present day, will be, however critics may 
try to narrow its scope, as varied in its excellence 
as humanity itself reflecting on the facts of its 
latest experience — an instrument of many 
stops, meditative, observant, descriptive, elo- 
quent, analytic, plaintive, fervid. Its beauties 
will be not exclusively "pedestrian": it will 
exert, in due measure, all the varied charms of 
poetry, down to the rhythm which, as in Cicero, 
or Michelet, or Newman, at their best, gives its 
musical value to every syllable. 

The literary artist is of necessity a scholar, 
and in what he proposes to do will have in 
mind, first of all, the scholar and the scholarly 
conscience — the male conscience in this 
matter, as we must think it, under a system 
of education which still to so large an extent 
limits real scholarship to men. In his self- 
criticism, he supposes always that sort of reader 
who will go (full of eyes) warily, considerately, 
though without consideration for him, over 
the ground which the female conscience trav- 
erses so lightly, so amiably. For the mate- 
rial in which he works is no more a creation 
of his own than the sculptor's marble. Product 
of a myriad various minds and contend- 
ing tongues, compact of obscure and minute 
association, a language has its own abundant 
and often recondite laws, in the habitual and 
summary recognition of which scholarship 
consists. A writer, full of a matter he is be- 
fore all things anxious to express, may think 
of those laws, the limitations of vocabulary, 
structure, and the like, as a restriction, but if 
a real artist will find in them an opportunity. 
His punctilious observance of the proprieties 
of his medium will diffuse through all he writes 
a general air of sensibility, of refined usage. 
Exclusiones debitae naturae — the exclusions, 
or rejections, which nature demands — we 
know how large a part these play, according to 
Bacon, in the science of nature. In a some- 
what changed sense, we might say that the art 



of the scholar is summed up in the observ- 
ance of those rejections demanded by the 
nature of his medium, the material he 
must use. Alive to the value of an atmos- 
phere in which every term finds its utmost 
degree of expression, and with all the jealousy 
of a lover of words, he will resist a constant 
tendency on the part of the majority of those 
who use them to efface the distinctions of 
language, the facility of writers often rein- 
forcing in this respect the work of the vulgar. 
He will feel the obligation not of the laws only, 
but of those affinities, avoidances, those mere 
preferences, of his language, which through the 
associations of literary history have become 
a part of its nature, prescribing the rejection 
of many a neology, many a license, many a 
gipsy phrase which might present itself as 
actually expressive. His appeal, again, is to 
the scholar, who has great experience in litera- 
ture, and will show no favour to short-cuts, or 
hackneyed illustration, or an affectation of 
learning designed for the unlearned. Hence 
a contention, a sense of self-restraint and re- 
nunciation, having for the susceptible reader 
the effect of a challenge for minute considera- 
tion; the attention of the writer, in every minut- 
est detail, being a pledge that it is worth the 
reader's while to be attentive too, that the writer 
is dealing scrupulously with his instrument, 
and therefore, indirectly, with the reader him- 
self also, that he has the science of the instru- 
ment he plays on, perhaps, after all, with a 
freedom which in such case will be the freedom 
of a master. 

For meanwhile, braced only by those re- 
straints, he is really vindicating his liberty in 
the making of a vocabulary, an entire system 
of composition, for himself, his own true man- 
ner; and when we speak of the manner of a 
true master we mean what is essential in his art. 
Pedantry being only the scholarship of le 
atistre (we have no English equivalent) he is 
no pedant, and does but show his intelligence 
of the rules of language in his freedoms with 
it, addition or expansion, which like the spon- 
taneities of manner in a well-bred person will 
still further illustrate good taste. — The right 
vocabulary. Translators have not invariably 
seen how all-important that is in the work of 
translation, driving for the most part at idiom 
or construction; whereas, if the original be 
first-rate, one's first care should be with its 
elementary particles, Plato, for instance, being 
often reproducible by an exact following, with 
no variation in structure, of word after word, 



STYLE 



495 



as the pencil follows a drawing under tracing- 
paper, so only each word or syllable be not of 
false colour, to change my illustration a little. 
Well ! that is because any writer worth trans- 
lating at all has winnowed and searched through 
his vocabulary, is conscious of the words he 
would select in systematic reading of a dic- 
tionary, and still more of the words he would 
reject were the dictionary other than Johnson's; 
and doing this with his peculiar sense of the 
world ever in view, in search of an instrument 
for the adequate expression of that, he begets 
a vocabulary faithful to the colouring of his 
own spirit, and in the strictest sense original. 
That living authority which language needs 
lies, in truth, in its scholars, who recognising 
always that every language possesses a genius, 
a very fastidious genius, of its own, expand at 
once and purify its very elements, which must 
needs change along with the changing thoughts 
of living people. Ninety years ago, for in- 
stance, great mental force, certainly, was 
needed by Wordsworth, to break through the 
consecrated poetic associations of a century, and 
speak the language that was his, that was to 
become in a measure the language of the next 
generation. But he did it with the tact of a 
scholar also. English, for a quarter of a century 
past, has been assimilating the phraseology of 
pictorial art; for half a century, the phrase- 
ology of the great German metaphysical move- 
ment of eighty years ago; in part also the 
language of mystical theology: and none but 
pedants will regret a great consequent increase 
of its resources. For many years to come its 
enterprise may well lie in the naturalisation of 
the vocabulary of science, so only it be under 
the eye of sensitive scholarship — in a liberal 
naturalisation of the ideas of science too, for 
after all the chief stimulus of good style is to 
possess a full, rich, complex matter to grapple 
with. The literary artist, therefore, will be 
well aware of physical science; science also 
attaining, in its turn, its true literary ideal. 
And then, as the scholar is nothing without the 
historic sense, he will be apt to restore not really 
obsolete or really worn-out words, but the finer 
edge of words still in use: ascertain, communi- 
cate, discover — words like these it has been 
part of our "business" to misuse. And still, 
as language was made for man, he will be 
no authority for correctnesses which, limiting 
freedom of utterance, were yet but accidents in 
their origin; as if one vowed not to say "its," 
which ought to have been in Shakespeare; 
■'his" and "hers," for inanimate objects, 



being but a barbarous and really inexpressive 
survival. Yet we have known many things 
like this. Racy Saxon monosyllables, close 
to us as touch and sight, he will intermix 
readily with those long, savoursome, Latin 
words, rich in " second intention." In this 
late day certainly, no critical process can 
be conducted reasonably without eclecticism. 
Of such eclecticism we have a justifying ex- 
ample in one of the first poets of our time. 
How illustrative of monosyllabic effect, of 
sonorous Latin, of the phraseology of science, 
of metaphysic, of colloquialism even, are the 
writings of Tennyson; yet with what a fine, 
fastidious scholarship throughout ! 

A scholar writing for the scholarly, he will 
of course leave something to the willing intelli- 
gence of his reader. "To go preach to the first 
passer-by," says Montaigne, "to become tutor 
to the ignorance of the first I meet, is a thing I 
abhor;" a thing, in fact, naturally distressing 
to the scholar, who will therefore ever be shy 
of offering uncomplimentary assistance to the 
reader's wit. To really strenuous minds there 
is a pleasurable stimulus in the challenge for a 
continuous effort on their part, to be rewarded 
by securer and more intimate grasp of the 
author's sense. Self-restraint, a skilful economy 
of means, ascesis, that too has a beauty of its 
own; and for the reader supposed there will be 
an aesthetic satisfaction in that frugal close- 
ness of style which makes the most of a word, 
in the exaction from every sentence of a pre- 
cise relief, in the just spacing out of word to 
thought, in the logically filled space connected 
always with the delightful sense of difficulty 
overcome. 

Different classes of persons, at different 
times, make, of course, very various demands 
upon literature. Still, scholars, I suppose, and 
not only scholars, but all disinterested lovers 
of books, will always look to it, as to all other 
fine art, for a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, 
from a certain vulgarity in the actual world. 
A perfect poem like Lycidas, a perfect fiction 
like Esmond, the perfect handling of a theory 
like Newman's Idea of a University, has for 
them something of the uses of a religious 
"retreat." Here, then, with a view to the 
central need of a select few, those "men of a 
finer thread" who have formed and maintained 
the literary ideal, everything, every component 
element, will have undergone exact trial, and, 
above all, there will be no uncharacteristic 
or tarnished or vulgar decoration, permissible 
ornament being for the most part structural, 



496 



WALTER PATER 



or necessary. As the painter in his picture, 
so the artist in his book, aims at the production 
by honourable artifice of a peculiar atmosphere. 
"The artist," says Schiller, "may be known 
rather by what he omits;" and in literature, too, 
the true artist may be best recognised by his 
tact of omission. For to the grave reader 
words too are grave ; and the ornamental word, 
the figure, the accessory form or colour or ref- 
erence, is rarely content to die to thought pre- 
cisely at the right moment, but will inevita- 
bly linger awhile, stirring a long "brain-wave" 
behind it of perhaps quite alien associations. 

Just there, it may be, is the detrimental 
tendency of the sort of scholarly attentiveness 
of mind I am recommending. But the true 
artist allows for it. He will remember that, as 
the very word ornament indicates what is in 
itself non-essential, so the "one beauty" of all 
literary style is of its very essence, and indepen- 
dent, in prose and verse alike, of all removable 
decoration; that it may exist in its fullest 
lustre, as in Flaubert's Madame Bovary, for 
instance, or in Stendhal's Le Rouge et Le Noir, 
in a composition utterly unadorned, with hardly 
a single suggestion of visibly beautiful things. 
Parallel, allusion, the allusive way generally, the 
flowers in the garden : — he knows the narcotic 
force of these upon the negligent intelligence to 
which any diversion, literally, is welcome, any 
vagrant intruder, because one can go wander- 
ing away with it from the immediate subject. 
Jealous, if he have a really quickening motive 
within, of all that does not hold directly to 
that, of the facile, the otiose, he will never 
depart from the strictly pedestrian process, un- 
less he gains a ponderable something thereby. 
Even assured of its congruity, he will still 
question its serviceableness. Is it worth while, 
can we afford, to attend to just that, to just 
that figure or literary reference, just then? — 
Surplusage ! he will dread that, as the runner on 
his muscles. For in truth all art does but 
consist in the removal of surplusage, from the 
last finish of the gem-engraver blowing away 
the last particle of invisible dust, back to the 
earliest divination of the finished work to be, 
lying somewhere, according to Michelangelo's 
fancy, in the rough-hewn block of stone. 

And what applies to figure or flower must be 
understood of all other accidental or removable 
ornaments of writing whatever; and not of 
specific ornament only, but of all that latent 
colour and imagery which language as such 
carries in it. A lover of words for their own 
sake, to whom nothing about them is unimpor- 



tant, a minute and constant observer of their 
physiognomy, he will be on the alert not only 
for obviously mixed metaphors of course, but 
for the metaphor that is mixed in all our speech, 
though a rapid use may involve no cognition 
of it. Currently recognising the incident, the 
colour, the physical elements or particles in 
words like absorb, consider, extract, to take the 
first that occur, he will avail himself of them, 
as further adding to the resources of expression. 
The elementary particles of language will be 
realised as colour and light and shade through 
his scholarly living in the full sense of them. 
Still opposing the constant degradation of lan- 
guage ' by those who use it carelessly, he will 
not treat coloured glass as if it were clear; 
and while half the world is using figure uncon- 
sciously, will be fully aware not only of all that 
latent figurative texture in speech, but of the 
vague, lazy, half-formed personification — ■ a 
rhetoric, depressing, and worse than nothing, 
because it has no really rhetorical motive — 
which plays so large a part there, and, as in 
the case of more ostentatious ornament, scru- 
pulously exact of it, from syllable to syllable, 
its precise value. 

So far I have been speaking of certain con- 
ditions of the literary art arising out of the me- 
dium or material in or upon which it works, 
the essential qualities of language and its 
aptitudes for contingent ornamentation, mat- 
ters which define scholarship as science and 
good taste respectively. They are both subser- 
vient to a more intimate quality of good style: 
more intimate, as coming nearer to the artist 
himself. The otiose, the facile, surplusage: 
why are these abhorrent to the true literary 
artist, except because, in literary as in all 
other art, structure is all-important, felt, or 
painfully missed, everywhere ? — that archi- 
tectural conception of work, which foresees the 
end in the beginning and never loses sight of 
it, and in every part is conscious of all the rest, 
till the last sentence does but, with undimin- 
ished vigour, unfold and justify the first — 
a condition of literary art, which, in contra- 
distinction to another quality of the artist him- 
self, to be spoken of later, I shall call the 
necessity of mind in style. 

An acute philosophical writer, the late Dean 
Mansel (a writer whose works illustrate the 
literary beauty there may be in closeness, 
and with obvious repression or economy of a 
fine rhetorical gift) wrote a book, of fascinating 
precision in a very obscure subject, to show that 
all the technical laws of logic are but means of 






STYLE 



497 



securing, in each and all of its apprehensions, 
the unity, the strict identity with itself, of the 
apprehending mind. All the laws of good 
writing aim at a similar unity or identity of the 
mind in all the processes by which the word is 
associated to its import. The term is right, 
and has its essential beauty, when it becomes, 
in a manner, what it signifies, as with the names 
of simple sensations. To give the phrase, the 
sentence, the structural member, the entire 
composition, song, or essay, a similar unity 
with its subject and with itself: — style is in 
the right way when it tends towards that. All 
depends upon the original unity, the vital 
wholeness and identity, of the initiatory ap- 
prehension or view. So much is true of all 
art, which therefore requires always its logic, 
its comprehensive reason — insight, foresight, 
retrospect, in simultaneous action — true, most 
of all, of the literary art, as being of all the arts 
most closely cognate to the abstract intelli- 
gence. Such logical coherency may be evi- 
denced not merely in the lines of composition as 
a whole, but in the choice of a single word, 
while it by no means interferes with, but may 
even prescribe, much variety, in the building of 
the sentence for instance, or in the manner, ar- 
gumentative, descriptive, discursive, of this or 
that part or member of the entire design. 
The blithe, crisp sentence, decisive as a child's 
expression of its needs, may alternate with the 
long-contending, victoriously intricate sentence; 
the sentence, born with the integrity of a single 
word, relieving the sort of sentence in which, 
if you look closely, you can see much con- 
trivance, much adjustment, to bring a highly 
qualified matter into compass at one view. 
For the literary architecture, if it is to be rich 
and expressive, involves not only foresight of 
the end in the beginning, but also development 
or growth of design, in the process of execution, 
with many irregularities, surprises, and after- 
thoughts; the contingent as well as the neces- 
sary being subsumed under the unity of the 
whole. As truly, to the lack of such architect- 
ural design, of a single, almost visual, image, 
vigorously informing an entire, perhaps very 
intricate, composition, which shall be austere, 
ornate, argumentative, fanciful, yet true from 
first to last to that vision within, may be at- 
tributed those weaknesses of conscious or un- 
conscious repetition of word, phrase, motive, 
or member of the whole matter, indicating, as 
Flaubert was aware, an original structure in 
thought not organically complete. With such 
foresight, the actual conclusion will most often 



get itself written out of hand, before, in the 
more obvious sense, the work is finished. With 
some strong and leading sense of the world, 
the tight hold of which secures true composi- 
tion and not mere loose accretion, the literary 
artist, I suppose, goes on considerately, setting 
joint to joint, sustained by yet restraining the 
productive ardour, retracing the negligences of 
his first sketch, repeating his steps only that 
he may give the reader a sense of secure and 
restful progress, readjusting mere assonances 
even, that they may soothe the reader, or at 
least not interrupt him on his way; and then, 
somewhere before the end comes, is burdened, 
inspired, with his conclusion, and betimes de- 
livered of it, leaving off, not in weariness and 
because he finds himself at an end, but in all the 
freshness of volition. His work now structurally 
complete, with all the accumulating effect of 
secondary shades of meaning, he finishes the 
whole up to the just proportion of that ante- 
penultimate conclusion, and all becomes ex- 
pressive. The house he has built is rather a 
body he has informed. And so it happens, to 
its greater credit, that the better interest even 
of a narrative to be recounted, a story to be 
told, will often be in its second reading. And 
though there are instances of great writers who 
have been no artists, an unconscious tact some- 
times directing work in which we may detect, 
very pleasurably, many of the effects of con- 
scious art, yet one of the greatest pleasures 
of really good prose literature is in the critical 
tracing out of that conscious artistic structure, 
and the pervading sense of it as we read. Yet 
of poetic literature too; for, in truth, the kind 
of constructive intelligence here supposed is one 
of the forms of the imagination. 

That is the special function of mind, in style. 
Mind and soul, — hard to ascertain philo- 
sophically, the distinction is real enough prac- 
tically, for they often interfere, are sometimes 
in conflict, with each other. Blake, in the last 
century, is an instance of preponderating soul, 
embarrassed, at a loss, in an era of preponderat- 
ing mind. As a quality of style, at all events, 
soul is a fact, in certain writers — the way they 
have of absorbing language, of attracting it into 
the peculiar spirit they are of, with a subtlety 
which makes the actual result seem like some 
inexplicable inspiration. By mind, the liter- 
ary artist reaches us, through static and ob- 
jective indications of design in his work, legi- 
ble to all. By soul, he reaches us, somewhat 
capriciously perhaps, one and not another, 
through vagrant sympathy and a kind of 



498 



WALTER PATER 



immediate contact. Mind we cannot choose but 
approve where we reedgnise it; soul may repel 
us, not because we misunderstand it. The u ay 
in which theological interests sometimes avail 
themselves of language is perhaps the best 
illustration of the force I mean to indicate gen- 
erally in literature, by the word soul. Ardent 
religious persuasion may exist, may make its 
way, without finding any equivalent heat in 
language: or, again, it may enkindle words to 
yarious degrees, and when it really takes hold 
of them doubles its force. Religious history 
presents many remarkable instances in which, 
through no mere phrase-worship, an uncon- 
scious literary tact has, for the sensitive, laid 
open a privileged pathway from one to another. 
"The altar-fire," people say, "has touched 
those lips!" The Vulgate, the English Bible, 
the English Prayer-Book, the writings of Swe- 
denborg, the Tracts for the Times: — there, we 
have instances of widely different and largely 
diffused phases of religious feeling in operation 
as soul in style. But something of the same 
kind acts with similar power in certain writers 
of quite other than theological literature, on 
behalf of some wholly personal and peculiar 
sense of theirs. Most easily illustrated by 
theological literature, this quality lends to 
profane writers a kind of religious influence. 
At their best, these writers become, as we say 
sometimes, "prophets"; such character de- 
pending on the effect not merely of their matter, 
but of their matter as allied to, in "electric 
affinity" with, peculiar form, and working in 
all cases by an immediate sympathetic contact, 
on which account it is that it may be called 
soul, as opposed to mind, in style. And this 
too is a faculty of choosing and rejecting what is 
congruous or otherwise, with a drift towards 
unity — unity of atmosphere here, as there of 
design — soul securing colour (or perfume, 
might we say?) as mind secures form, the latter 
being essentially finite, the former vague or 
infinite, as the influence of a living person is 
practically infinite. There are some to whom 
nothing has any real interest, or real meaning, 
except as operative in a given person; and it 
is they who best appreciate the quality of soul 
in literary art. They seem to know a person, 
in a book, and make way by intuition: yet, 
although they thus enjoy the completeness of 
a personal information, it is still a character- 
istic of soul, in this sense of the word, that it 
does but suggest what can never be uttered, 
not as being different from, or more obscure 
than, what actually gets said, but as containing 



that plenary substance of which there is only 
one phase or facet in what is there expressed. 

If all high things have their martyrs, Gustave 
Flaubert might perhaps rank as the martyr of 
literary style. In his printed correspondence, 
a curious series of letters, written in his twenty- 
fifth year, records what seems to have been his 
one other passion — a series of letters which, 
witli its fine casuistries, its firmly repressed 
anguish, its tone of harmonious gray, and the 
sense of disillusion in which the whole matter 
ends, might have been, a few slight changes sup- 
posed, one of his own fictions. Writing to 
Madame X. certainly he does display, by 
"taking thought" mainly, by constant and 
delicate pondering, as in his love for literature, 
a heart really moved, but still more, and as the 
pledge of that emotion, a loyalty to his work. 
Madame X., too, is a literary artist, and the 
best gifts he can send her are precepts of per- 
fection in art, counsels for the effectual pursuit 
of that better love. In his love-letters it is 
the pains and pleasures of art he insists on, its 
solaces: he communicates secrets, reproves, 
encourages, with a view to that. Whether the 
lady was dissatisfied with such divided or 
indirect service, the reader is not enabled to 
see; but sees that, on Flaubert's part at least, 
a living person could be no rival of what was, 
from first to last, his leading passion, a some- 
what solitary and exclusive one. 

"I must scold you," he writes, "for one thing, 
which shocks, scandalises me, the small con- 
cern, namely, you show for art just now. 
As regards glory be it so: there, I approve. 
But for art ! — the one thing in life that is good 
and real — can you compare with it an earthly 
love ? — prefer the adoration of a relative beauty 
to the cull us of the true beauty? Well! I tell 
you the truth. That is the one thing good in 
me: the one thing I have, to me estimable. 
For yourself, you blend with the beautiful 
a heap of alien things, the useful, the agree- 
able, what not ? — 

"The only way not to be unhappy is to shut 
yourself up in art, and count everything else as 
nothing. Pride takes the place of all beside 
when it is established on a large basis. Work ! 
God wills it. That, it seems to me, is clear. — 

"I am reading over again the /Eneid, certain 
verses of which I repeat to myself to satiety. 
There are phrases there which stay in one's 
head, by which I find myself beset, as with 
those musical airs which are forever returning, 
and cause you pain, you love them so much. 
I observe that I no longer laugh much, and 






STYLE 



499 



am no longer depressed. lam ripe. You talk 
of my serenity, and envy me. It may well 
surprise you. Sick, irritated, the prey a thou- 
sand times a day of cruel pain, I continue my 
labour like a true working-man, who, with 
sleeves turned up, in the sweat of his brow, 
beats away at his anvil, never troubling him- 
self whether it rainsor blows, for hail or thunder. 
I was not like that formerly. The change has 
taken place naturally, though my will has 
counted for something in the matter. — 

"Those who write in good style are some- 
times accused of a neglect of ideas, and of the 
moral end, as if the end of the physician were 
something else than healing, of the painter 
than painting — as if the end of art were not, 
before all else, the beautiful." 

What, then, did Flaubert understand by 
beauty, in the art he pursued with so much 
fervour, with so much self-command? Let us 
hear a sympathetic commentator: — 

"Possessed of an absolute belief that there 
exists but one way of expressing one thing, one 
word to call it by, one adjective to qualify, 
one verb to animate it, he gave himself to super- 
human labour for the discovery, in every phrase, 
of that word, that verb, that epithet. In this 
way, he believed in some mysterious harmony 
of expression, and when a true word seemed 
to him to lack euphony still went on seeking 
another, with invincible patience, certain that 
he had not yet got hold of the unique word. . . . 
A thousand preoccupations would beset him at 
the same moment, always with this desperate 
certitude fixed in his spirit: Among all the 
expressions in the world, all forms and turns 
of expression, there is but one — one form, 
one mode — to express what I want to 
say." 

The one word for the one thing, the one 
thought, amid the multitude of words, terms, 
that might just do: the problem of style was 
there! — the unique word, phrase, sentence, 
paragraph, essay, or song, absolutely proper 
to the single mental presentation or vision 
within. In that perfect justice, over and above 
the many contingent and removable beauties 
with which beautiful style may charm us, but 
which it can exist without, independent of them 
yet dexterously availing itself of them, omni- 
present in good work, in function at every 
point, from single epithets to the rhythm of a 
whole book, lay the specific, indispensable, 
very intellectual, beauty of literature, the pos- 
sibility of which constitutes it a fine art. 

One seems to detect the influence of a philo- 



sophic idea there, the idea of a natural economy, 
of some preexistent adaptation, between a rel- 
ative, somewhere in the world of thought, and 
its correlative, somewhere in the world of 
language — both alike, rather, somewhere in 
the mind of the artist, desiderative, expectant, 
inventive — meeting each other with the readi- 
ness of "soul and body reunited," in Blake's 
rapturous design ; and, in fact, Flaubert was 
fond of giving his theory philosophical expres- 
sion. 

"There are no beautiful thoughts," he would 
say, "without beautiful forms, and conversely. 
As it is impossible to extract from a physical 
body the qualities which really constitute it 
— colour, extension, and the like — without 
reducing it to a hollow abstraction, in a word, 
without destroying it; just so it is impossible 
to detach the form from the idea, for the idea 
only exists by virtue of the form." 

All the recognised flowers, the removable 
ornaments of literature (including harmony 
and ease in reading aloud, very carefully con- 
sidered by him) counted certainly; for these too 
are part of the actual value of what one says. 
But still, after all, with Flaubert, the search, the 
unwearied research, was not for the smooth, 
or winsome, or forcible word, as such, as with 
false Ciccronians, but quite simply and honestly 
for the word's adjustment to its meaning. The 
first condition of this must be, of course, to 
know yourself, to have ascertained your own 
sense exactly. Then, if we suppose an artist, 
he says to the reader, — I want you to see 
precisely what I sec. Into the mind sensitive 
to " form," a flood of random sounds, colours, 
incidents, is ever penetrating from the world 
without, to become, by sympathetic selection, 
a part of its very structure, and, in turn, the 
visible vesture and expression of that other 
world it sees so steadily within, nay, already 
with a partial conformity thereto, to be refined, 
enlarged, corrected, at a hundred points; and 
it is just there, just at those doubtful points 
that the function of style, as tact or taste, 
intervenes. The unique term will come more 
quickly to one than another, at one time than 
another, according also to the kind of matter 
in question. Quickness and slowness, ease and 
closeness alike, have nothing to do with the 
artistic character of the true word found at last. 
As there is a charm of ease, so there is also a 
special charm in the signs of discovery, of effort 
and contention towards a due end, as so often 
with Flaubert himself — in the style which 
has been pliant, as only obstinate, durable 



5°° 



WALTER PATER 



metal can be, to the inherent perplexities and 
recusancy of a certain difficult thought. 

If Flaubert had not told us, perhaps we should 
never have guessed how tardy and painful his 
own procedure really was, and after reading 
his confession may think that his almost endless 
hesitation had much to do with diseased nerves. 
Often, perhaps, the felicity supposed will be the 
product of a happier, a more exuberant nature 
than Flaubert's. Aggravated, certainly, by a 
morbid physical condition, that anxiety in 
"seeking the phrase," which gathered all the 
other small ennuis of a really quiet existence 
into a kind of battle, was connected with his 
lifelong contention against facile poetry, facile 
art — art, facile and flimsy; and what con- 
stitutes the true artist is not the slowness or 
quickness of the process, but the absolute 
success of the result. As with those labourers 
in the parable, the prize is independent of the 
mere length of the actual day's work. "You 
talk," he writes, odd, trying lover, to Madame 
X. — 

"You talk of the exclusiveness of my literary 
tastes. That might have enabled you to divine 
what kind of a person I am in the matter of 
love. I grow so hard to please as a literary 
artist, that I am driven to despair. I shall end 
by not writing another line." 

"Happy," he cries, in a moment of discourage- 
ment at that patient labour, which for him, cer- 
tainly, was the condition of a great success — 

"Happy those who have no doubts of them- 
selves ! who lengthen out, as the pen runs on, 
all that flows forth from their brains. As 
for me, I hesitate, I disappoint myself, turn 
round upon myself in despite: my taste is 
augmented in proportion as my natural vigour 
decreases, and I afflict my soul over some dubi- 
ous word out of all proportion to the pleasure 
I get from a whole page of good writing. One 
would have to live two centuries to attain a true 
idea of any matter whatever. What Bufl'on 
said is a big blasphemy: genius is not long- 
continued patience. Still, there is some 
truth in the statement, and more than people 
think, especially as regards our own day. 
Art ! art ! art ! bitter deception ! phantom 
that glows with light, only to lead one on to 
destruction." 

Again — 

"I am growing so peevish about my writing. 
I am like a man whose ear is true but who plays 
falsely on the violin: his fingers refuse to re- 
produce precisely those sounds of which he has 
the inward sense. Then the tears come rolling 



down from the poor scraper's eyes and the 
bow falls from his hand." 

Coming slowly or quickly, when it comes, as 
it came with so much labour of mind, but also 
with so much lustre, to Gustave Flaubert, 
this discovery of the word will be, like all 
artistic success and felicity, incapable of strict 
analysis : effect of an intuitive condition of mind, 
it must be recognised by like intuition on the 
part of the reader, and a sort of immediate 
sense. In every one of those masterly sentences 
of Flaubert there was, below all mere contriv- 
ance, shaping and afterthought, by some 
happy instantaneous concourse of the various 
faculties of the mind with each other, the exact 
apprehension of what was needed to carry the 
meaning. And that it fits with absolute justice 
will be a judgment of immediate sense in the 
appreciative reader. We all feel this in what 
may be called inspired translation. Well ! 
all language involves translation from inward 
to outward. In literature, as in all forms of 
art, there are the absolute and the merely rel- 
ative or accessory beauties; and precisely in 
that exact proportion of the term to its purpose - 
is the absolute beauty of style, prose or verse. 
All the good qualities, the beauties, of verse 
also, are such, only as precise expression. 

In the highest as in the lowliest literature, 
then, the one indispensable beauty is, after all, 
truth: — truth to bare fact in the latter, as to 
some personal sense of fact, diverted somewhat 
from men's ordinary sense of it, in the former; 
truth there as accuracy, truth here as expres- 
sion, that finest and most intimate form of 
truth, the vraie verite. And what an eclectic 
principle this really is! employing for its one 
sole purpose — that absolute accordance of 
expression to idea — all other literary beauties 
and excellences whatever: how many kinds of 
style it covers, explains, justifies, and at the 
same time safeguards! Scott's facility, Flau- 
bert's deeply pondered evocation of "the 
phrase," are equally good art. Say what you 
have to say, what you have a will to say, in the 
simplest, the most direct and exact manner 
possible, with no surplusage: — there, is the 
justification of the sentence so fortunately 
born, "entire, smooth, and round," that it 
needs no punctuation, and also (that is the 
point!) of the most elaborate period, if it be 
right in its elaboration. Here is the office of 
ornament: here also the purpose of restraint 
in ornament. As the exponent of truth, that 
austerity (the beauty, the function, of which in 
literature Flaubert understood so well) becomes 



STYLE 



5oi 



not the correctness or purism of the mere 
scholar, but a security against the otiose, a 
jealous exclusion of what does not really tell 
towards the pursuit of relief, of life and vigour 
in the portraiture of one's sense. License again, 
the making free with rule, if it be indeed, as 
people fancy, a habit of genius, Hinging aside 
or transforming all that opposes the liberty of 
beautiful production, will be but faith to one's 
own meaning. The seeming baldness of 
Le Rouge et Le Noir is nothing in itself; the 
wild ornament of Les Miserables is nothing 
in itself; and the restraint of Flaubert, amid a 
real natural opulence, only redoubled beauty — 
the phrase so large and so precise at the same 
time, hard as bronze, in service to the more 
perfect adaptation of words to their matter. 
Afterthoughts, retouchings, finish, will be of 
profit only so far as they too really serve to 
bring out the original, initiative, generative, 
sense in them. 

In this way, according to the well-known 
saying, "The style is the man," complex or 
simple, in his individuality, his plenary sense of 
what he really has to say, his sense of the world ; 
all cautions regarding style arising out of so 
many natural scruples as to the medium through 
which alone he can expose that inward sense of 
things, the purity of this medium, its laws or 
tricks of refraction: nothing is to be left there 
which might give conveyance to any matter 
save that. Style in all its varieties, reserved 
or opulent, terse, abundant, musical, stimulant, 
academic, so long as each is really character- 
istic or expressive, finds thus its justification, 
the sumptuous good taste of Cicero being as 
truly the man himself, and not another, justi- 
fied, yet insured inalienably to him, thereby, 
as would have been his portrait by Raffaelle, 
in full consular splendour, on his ivory 
chair. 

A relegation, you may say perhaps — a rele- 
gation of style to the subjectivity, the mere 
caprice, of the individual, which must soon 
transform it into mannerism. Not so ! since 
there is, under the conditions supposed, for 
those elements of the man, for every lineament 
of the vision within, the one word, the one 
acceptable word, recognisable by the sensitive, 
by others "who have intelligence" in the 
matter, as absolutely as ever anything can be 
in the evanescent and delicate region of human 
language. The style, the manner, would be the 
man, not in his unreasoned and really unchar- 
acteristic caprices, involuntary or affected, but 
in absolutely sincere apprehension of what 



is most real to him. But let us hear our French 
guide again. — 

"Styles," says Flaubert's commentator, 
"Styles, as so many peculiar moulds, each of 
which bears the mark of a particular writer, 
who is to pour into it the whole content of his 
ideas, were no part of his theory. What he 
believed in was Style: that is to say, a certain 
absolute and unique manner of expressing a 
thing, in all its intensity and colour. For him 
the form was the work itself. As in living 
creatures, the blood, nourishing the body, 
determines its very contour and external 
aspect, just so, to his mind, the matter, the ba- 
sis, in a work of art, imposed, necessarily, the 
unique, the just expression, the measure, the 
rhythm — the form in all its characteristics." 

If the style be the man, in all the colour and 
intensity of a veritable apprehension, it will be 
in a real sense "impersonal." 

I said, thinking of books like Victor Hugo's 
Les Miserables, that prose literature was the 
characteristic art of the nineteenth century, 
as others, thinking of its triumphs since the 
youth of Bach, have assigned that place to 
music. Music and prose literature are, in one 
sense, the opposite terms of art ; the art of lit- 
erature presenting to the imagination, through 
the intelligence, a range of interests, as free 
and various as those which music presents to 
it through sense. And certainly the tendency 
of what has been here said is to bring literature 
too under those conditions, by conformity to 
which music takes rank as the typically perfect 
art. If music be the ideal of all art whatever, 
precisely because in music it is impossible to 
distinguish the form from the substance or 
matter, the subject from the expression, then, 
literature, by finding its specific excellence in 
the absolute correspondence of the term to its 
import, will be but fulfilling the condition of 
all artistic quality in things everywhere, of all 
good art. 

Good art, but not necessarily great art; the 
distinction between great art and good art 
depending immediately, as regards literature at 
all events, not on its form, but on the matter. 
Thackeray's Esmond, surely, is greater art 
than Vanity Fair, bv the greater dignity of its 
interests. It is on the quality of the matter 
it informs or controls, its compass, its variety, 
its alliance to great ends, or the depth of the 
note of revolt, or the largeness of hope in it, 
that the greatness of literary art depends, as 
The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Les Mise- 
rables, The English Bible, are great art. Given 



5°- 



WALTER PATER 



the conditions I have tried to explain as con- 
stituting good art; — then, if it be devoted 
further to the increase of men's happiness, to 
the redemption of the oppressed, or the en- 
largement of our sympathies with each other, 
or to such presentment of new or old truth 
about ourselves and our relation to the world 
as may ennoble and fortify us in our sojourn 
lure, or immediately, as with Dante, to the 
glory of God, it will be also great art; if, over 
and above those qualities I summed up as 
mind and soul — that colour and mystic per- 
fume, and that reasonable structure, it has 
something of the soul of humanity in it, and 
finds its logical, its architectural place, in the 
great structure of human life. 

THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE 

As Florian Deleal walked, one hot after- 
noon, he overtook by the wayside a poor aged 
man, and, as he seemed weary with the road, 
helped him on with the burden which he 
carried, a certain distance. And as the man 
told his story, it chanced that he named the 
place, a little place in the neighbourhood of a 
great city, where Florian had passed his earliest 
years, but which he had never since seen, and, 
the story told, went forward on his journey 
comforted. And that night, like a reward for 
his pity, a dream of that place came to Florian, 
a dream which did for him the office of the 
finer sort of memory, bringing its object to 
mind with a great clearness, yet, as sometimes 
happens in dreams, raised a little above itself, 
and above ordinary retrospect. The true as- 
pect of the place, especially of the house there 
in which he hail lived as a child, the fashion 
of its doors, its hearths, its windows, the very 
scent upon the air of it, was with him in sleep 
for a season; only, with tints more musically 
blent on wall and floor, and some finer light 
and shadow running in and out along its 
curves and angles, and with all its little carv- 
ings daintier. He awoke with a sigh at the 
thought of almost thirty years which lay be- 
tween him and that place, yet with a flutter 
of pleasure still within him at the fair light, as 
if it were a smile, upon it. And it happened 
that this accident of his dream was just the 
thing needed for the beginning of a certain 
design he then had in view, the noting, namely, 
of some things in the story of his spirit — in 
that process of brain-building by which we 
are, each one of us, what we are. With the 
image of the place so clear and favourable 



upon him, he fell to thinking of himself therein, 
and how his thoughts had grown up to him. 
In that half-spiritualised house he could 
watch the better, over again, the gradual 
expansion of the soul which had come to be 
there — of which indeed, through the law 
which makes the material objects about them 
so large an clement in children's lives, it had 
actually become a part; inward and outward 
being woven through and through each other 
into one inextricable texture — half, tint and 
trace and accident of homely colour and form, 
from the wood and the bricks; half, mere 
soul-stuff, floated thither from who knows how 
far. In the house and garden of his dream 
he saw a child moving, and could divide the 
main streams at least of the winds that had 
played on him, and study so the first stage in 
that mental journey. 

The old house, as when Florian talked of it 
afterwards he always called it (as all children 
do, who can recollect a change of home, soon 
enough but not too soon to mark a period in 
their lives), really was an old house; and an 
element of French descent in its inmates — 
descent from Watteau, the old court-painter, 
one of whose gallant pieces still hung in one 
of the rooms — might explain, together with 
some other things, a noticeable trimness and 
comely whiteness about everything there — the 
curtains, the couches, the paint on the walls 
with which the light and shadow played so 
delicately; might explain also the tolerance of 
the great poplar in the garden, a tree most 
often despised by English people, hut which 
French people love, having observed a certain 
fresh way its leaves have of dealing with the 
wind, making it sound, in never so slight a 
stirring of the air, like running water. 

The old-fashioned, low wainscoting went 
round the rooms, and up the staircase with 
carved balusters and shadowy angles, landing 
half-way up at a broad window, with a swallow's 
nest below the sill, and the blossom of an old 
pear-tree showing across it in late April, against 
the blue, below which the perfumed juice of 
the find of fallen fruit in autumn was so fresh. 
At the next turning came the closet which 
held on its deep shelves the best china. Little 
angel faces and reedy flutings stood out round 
the fireplace of the children's room. And on 
the top of the house, above the large attic, 
where the white mice ran in the twilight — an 
infinite, unexplored wonderland of childish 
treasures, glass beads, empty scent-bottles still 
sweet, thrums of coloured silks, among its 



THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE 



503 



'lumber — a flat space of roof, railed round, 
gave a view of the neighbouring steeples; for 
the house, as I said, stood near a great city, 
which sent up heavenwards, over the twisting 
weather-vanes, not seldom, its beds of rolling 
cloud and smoke, touched with storm or sun- 
shine. But the child of whom I am writing 
did not hate the fog because of the crimson 
lights which fell from it sometimes upon the 
chimneys, and the whites which gleamed 
through its openings, on summer mornings, 
on turret or pavement. For it is false to 
suppose that a child's sense of beauty is de- 
pendent on any choiceness or special fineness, 
in the objects which present themselves to it, 
though this indeed comes to be the rule with 
most of us in later life; earlier, in some de- 
gree, we see inwardly; and the child finds 
for itself, and with unstinted delight, a differ- 
ence for the sense, in those whites and reds 
through the smoke on very homely buildings, 
and in the gold of the dandelions at the road- 
side, just beyond the houses, where not a 
handful of earth is virgin and untouched, in 
the lack of better ministries to its desire of 
beauty. 

This house then stood not far beyond the 
gloom and rumours of the town, among high 
garden-walls, bright all summer-time with 
Golden-rod, and brown-and-golden Wall- 
flower — Flos Parietis, as the children's Latin- 
reading father taught them to call it, while he 
was with them. Tracing back the threads of 
his complex spiritual habit, as he was used in 
after years to do, Florian found that he owed 
to the place many tones of sentiment after- 
wards customary with him, certain inward 
lights under which things most naturally pre- 
sented themselves to him. The coming and 
going of travellers to the town along the way, 
the shadow of the streets, the sudden breath 
of the neighbouring gardens, the singular 
brightness of bright weather there, its singu- 
lar darknesses which linked themselves in his 
mind to certain engraved illustrations in the 
old big Bible at home, the coolness of the 
dark, cavernous shops round the great church, 
with its giddy winding stair up to the pigeons 
and the bells — a citadel of peace in the heart 
of the trouble — all this acted on his childish 
fancy, so that ever afterwards the like aspects 
and incidents never failed to throw him into 
a well-recognised imaginative mood, seeming 
actually to have become a part of the texture 
of his mind. Also, Florian could trace home 
to this point a pervading preference in him- 



self for a kind of comeliness and dignity, an 
urbanity literally, in modes of life, which he 
connected with the pale people of towns, and 
which made him susceptible to a kind of ex- 
quisite satisfaction in the trimness and well- 
considered grace of certain things and per- 
sons he afterwards met with, here and there, 
in his way through the world. 

So the child of whom I am writing lived on 
there quietly; things without thus ministering 
to him, as he sat daily at the window with 
the birdcage hanging below it, and his mother 
taught him to read, wondering at the ease 
with which he learned, and at the quickness 
of his memory. The perfume of the little 
flowers of the lime-tree fell through the air 
upon them like rain; while time seemed to 
move ever more slowly to the murmur of the 
bees in it, till it almost stood still on June 
afternoons. How insignificant, at the moment, 
seem the influences of the sensible things which 
are tossed and fall and lie about us, so, or so, 
in the environment of early childhood. How 
indelibly, as we afterwards discover, they 
affect us; with what capricious attractions 
and associations they figure themselves on the 
white paper, the smooth wax, of our ingenuous 
souls, as "with lead in the rock forever," giv- 
ing form and feature, and as it were assigned 
house-room in our memory, to early experi- 
ences of feeling and thought, which abide with 
us ever afterwards, thus, and not otherwise. 
The realities and passions, the rumours of the 
greater world without, steal in upon us, each 
by its own special little passage-way, through 
the wall of custom about us; and never after- 
wards quite detach themselves from this or 
that accident, or trick, in the mode of their S" 
first entrance to us. Our susceptibilities, tin 
discovery of our powers, manifold experiences 
— our various experiences of the coming and 
going of bodily pain, for instance — belong to 
this or the other well-remembered place in the 
material habitation — that little white room 
with the window across which the heavy 
blossoms could beat so peevishly in the wind, 
with just that particular catch or throb, such 
a sense of teasing in it, on gusty mornings; 
and the early habitation thus gradually be- 
comes a sort of material shrine or sanctuary 
of sentiment; a system of visible symbolism 
interweaves itself through all our thoughts and 
passions; and irresistibly, little shapes, voices, 
accidents — the angle at which the sun in the 
morning fell on the pillow — become parts of 
the great chain wherewith we are bound. 



504 



WALTER PATER 



Thus far, for Florian, what all this had 
determined was a peculiarly strong sense of 
home so forcible a motive willi all of US — 
prompting to us our customary love of the 
earth, and the larger part of our fear of death, 
thai revulsion we have from it, as from some 
thing strange, untried, unfriendly; though 
lifelong imprisonment, they tell you, and final 
banishment from home is a thing bitterer still; 
l lie looking forward to but a short space, a 
mere childish goftlcr and dessert of it, before 
the end, being so great a resource of efforl 
to pilgrims and wayfarers, and the soldier in 
distant quarters, and lending, in lack of that, 
some power of solace to the thought of sleep 
in the home churchyard, at least — dead 
cheek by dead cheek, and with the rain soak- 
ing in upon one from above. 

So powerful is this instinct, and yet acci- 
dents like those I have been speaking of so 
mechanically determine it; its essence being 
indeed the early familiar, as constituting our 
ideal, or typical conception, of rest and security, 
(tut of so many possible conditions, just this 
for you and that for me, brings ever the un- 
mistakable realisation of the delightful chcz 
soi ; this for the Englishman, for me and you, 
with the closely drawn white curtain and the 
shaded lamp; that, quite Other, for the wan- 
dering Aral), who folds his tent every morning, 
and makes his sleeping place among haunted 
ruins, or in old tombs. 

With Florian (hen the sense of home be- 
came singularly intense, his good fortune being 
that the special character of his home was in 
itself so essentially home like. As after many 
Wanderings I have come to fancy that some 
parts of Surrey and Kent are, for Englishmen, 
the true landscape, true home-countries, by 
right, partly, of a certain earthy warmth in the 
yellow of the sand below their gorse bushes, 
and of a certain gray blue mist after rain, in 
the hollows of the hills there, welcome to 
fatigued eyes, and never seen farther south; 
so I think that the sort of house I have de- 
scribed, with precisely those proportions of 
red brick and green, and with a just per- 
ceptible monotony in the subdued order of it, 
for its distinguishing note, is for Englishmen 
at least typically home like. And so for 
Florian that general human instinct was rein- 
forced by this special home likeness in the 
place his wandering soul had happened to 
light on, as, in the second degree, its body 
and earthly tabernacle; the sense of harmony 
between his soul and its physical environment 



became, for a time at least, like perfectly 
played music, and the life led there singularly 
tranquil and filled with a curious sense of 
self-possession. The love of security, of an 
habitually undisputed standing-ground or sleep 
ing-place, came to count for much in the 
generation and correcting of his thoughts, and 
afterwards as a salutary principle of restraint 
in all his wanderings of spirit. The wistful 
yearning towards home, in absence from it, 
as the shadows of evening deepened, and he 
followed in thought what was doing there 
from hour to hour, interpreted to him much 
of a yearning and regret he experienced af- 
terwards, towards he knew not what, out of 
strange ways of feeling and thought in which, 
from time to time, his spirit found itself alone; 
and in the tears shed in such absences there 
seemed always to be some soul-subduing fore- 
taste of what his last tears might be. 

And the sense of security could hardly have 
been deeper, the quiet of the child's soul being 
one with the quiet of its home, a place "en- 
closed" and "sealed." But upon this assured 
place, upon the child's assured soul which 
resembled it, there came floating in from the 
larger world without, as at windows left ajar 
unknowingly, or over the high garden walls, 
two streams of impressions, the sentiments of 
beauty and pain — recognitions of the visible, 
tangible, audible loveliness of things, as a very 
real and somewhat tyrannous element in them 

and of the sorrow of the world, of grown 
people and children and animals, as a thing 
not to be put by in them. From 'this point 
he could trace two predominant processes of 
mental change in him — the growth of an 
almost diseased sensibility to the spectacle of 
suffering, and, parallel with this, the rapid 
growth of a certain capacity of fascination by 
bright colour and choice form — the sweet 
curvings, for instance, of the lips of those 
who seemed to him comely persons, modu- 
lated in such delicate unison to the things 
they said or sang, — marking early tin- activity 
in him of a more than customary sensuousness, 
"the lust of the eye," as the Preacher says, 
which might lead him, one day, how far! 
Could he have foreseen the weariness of the 
way! In music sometimes the two sorts of 
impressions came together, and he would 
weep, to the surprise of older people. Tears 
of joy too the child knew, also to older people's 
surprise; real tears, once, of relief from long- 
strung, childish expectation, when he found 
returned at evening, with new roses in her 



TIIK CHILD IN THL IIOUSK 



5o5 



cheeks, the little sister who had been to a 
place where there was a wood, and brought 
back for him a treasure of fallen acorns, and 
black crow's feathers, and his peace at find- 
ing her again near him mingled all night with 
some intimate sense of the distant forest, the 
rumour of its breezes, with the glossy black- 
birds aslant and the branches lifted in them, 
and of the perfect nicety of the little cups 
that fell. So those two elementary appre- 
hensions of the tenderness and of the colour 
in things grew apace in him, and were seen 
by him afterwards to send their roots back 
into the beginnings of life. 

Let me note first some of the occasions of 
his recognition of the element of pain in 
things — incidents, now and again, which 
seemed suddenly to awake in him the whole 
force of that sentiment which Goethe has 
called the Weltschmerz, and in which the con- 
centrated sorrow of the world seemed suddenly 
to lie heavy upon him. A book lay in an old 
book-case, of which he cared to remember one 
picture — a woman sitting, with hands bound 
behind her, the dress, the cap, the hair, folded 
with a simplicity which touched him strangely, 
as if not by her own hands, but with some 
ambiguous care at the hands of others — 
Queen Marie Antoinette, on her way to exe- 
cution — we all remember David's drawing, 
meant merely to make her ridiculous. The 
face that had been so high had learned to be 
mute and resistless; but out of its very resist - 
Iessness, seemed now to call on men to have 
pity, and forbear; and he took note of that, 
as he closed the book, as a thing to look at 
again, if he should at any time find himself 
tempted to be cruel. Again he would never 
quite forget the appeal in the small sister's 
face, in the garden under the lilacs, terrified at 
a spider lighted on her sleeve. He could trace 
back to the look then noted a certain mercy 
conceived always for people in fear, even 
of little things, which seemed to make him, 
though but for a moment, capable of almost 
any sacrifice of himself. Impressible, sus- 
ceptible persons, indeed, who had had their 
sorrows, lived about him; and this sensibility 
was due in part to the tacit influence of their 
presence, enforcing upon him habitually the 
fact that there are those who pass their days, 
as a matter of course, in a sort of "going 
quietly." Most poignantly of all he could re- 
call, in unfading minutest circumstance, the 
cry on the stair, sounding bitterly through the 
house, and struck into his soul forever, of an 



aged woman, his father's sister, come now to 
announce his death in distant India; how ii 
seemed to make the aged woman like a child 
again; and, he knew not why, but this fancy 
was full of pity to him. There were the little 
sorrows of the dumb animals too — of the 
white angora, with a dark tail like an ermine's, 
and a face like a flower, who fell into a linger 
ing sickness, and became quite delicately hu- 
man in its valetudinarianism, and came to 
have a hundred different expressions of voice 
— how it grew worse and worse, till it began 
to feel the light too much for it, and at last, 
after one wild morning of pain, the little soul 
flickered away from the body, quite worn to 
death already, and now but feebly retaining it. 

So he wanted another pet; and as there 
were starlings about the place, which could be 
taught to speak, one of them was caught, and 
he meant to treat it kindly; but in the night 
its young ones could be heard crying after 
it, and the responsive cry of the mother bird 
towards them; and at last, with the first 
light, though not till after some debate with 
himself, he went down and opened the cage, 
and saw a sharp bound of the prisoner up to 
her nestlings; and therewith came the sense of 
remorse, — that he too was become an accom- 
plice in moving, to the limit of his small power, 
the springs and handles of that great machine 
in things, constructed so ingeniously to play 
pain-fugues on the delicate nerve-work of 
living creatures. 

I have remarked how, in the process of our 
brain-building, as the house of thought in 
which we live gets itself together, like some 
airy bird's-nest of floating thistle-down and 
chance straws, compact at last, little accidents 
have their consequence; and thus it happened 
that, as he walked one evening, a garden gate, 
usually closed, stood open; and lo! within, a 
great red hawthorn in full flower, embossing 
heavily the bleached and twisted trunk and 
branches, so aged' that there were but few 
green leaves thereon — a plumage of tender, 
crimson fire out of the heart of the dry wood. 
The perfume of the tree had now and again 
reached him, in the currents of the wind, over 
the wall, and he had wondered what might be 
behind it, and was now allowed to fill his arms 
with the flowers — flowers enough for all the 
old blue-china pots along the chimney-piece, 
making fele in the children's room. Was it 
some periodic moment in the expansion of soul 
within him, or mere trick of heat in the heavily- 
laden summer air? But the beauty of the 



506 



WALTER PATER 



thing struck home to him feverishly; and in 
dreams all night he loitered along a magic 
roadway of crimson flowers, which seemed to 
open ruddily in thick, fresh masses about his 
feet, and fill softly all the little hollows in the 
banks on either side. Always afterwards, 
summer by summer, as the flowers came on, 
the blossom of the red hawthorn still seemed 
to him absolutely the reddest of all things; 
and the goodly crimson, still alive in the works 
of old Venetian masters or old Flemish tapes- 
tries, called out always from afar the recollec- 
tion of the flame in those perishing little petals, 
as it pulsed gradually out of them, kept long 
in the drawers of an old cabinet. Also then, 
for the first time, he seemed to experience a 
passionateness in his relation to fair outward 
objects, an inexplicable excitement in their 
presence, which disturbed him, and from which 
he half longed to be free. A touch of regret 
or desire mingled all night with the remem- 
bered presence of the red flowers, and their 
perfume in the darkness about him; and the 
longing for some undivined, entire possession 
of them was the beginning of a revelation to 
him, growing ever clearer, with the coming of 
the gracious summer guise of fields and trees 
and persons in each succeeding year, of a cer- 
tain, at times seemingly exclusive, predominance 
in his interests, of beautiful physical things, a 
kind of tyranny of the senses over him. 

In later years he came upon philosophies 
which occupied him much in the estimate of 
the proportion of the sensuous and the ideal 
elements in human knowledge, the relative 
parts they bear in it; and, in his intellectual 
scheme, was led to assign very little to the 
abstract thought, and much to 'its sensible 
vehicle or occasion. Such metaphysical specu- 
lation did but reinforce what was instinctive 
in his way of receiving the world, and for him, 
everywhere, that sensible vehicle or occasion 
became, perhaps only too surely, the necessary 
concomitant of any perception of things, real 
enough to be of any weight or reckoning, in 
his house of thought. There were times when 
he could think of the necessity he was under 
of associating all thoughts to touch and sight, 
as a sympathetic link between himself and 
actual, feeling, living objects; a protest in 
favour of real men and women against mere 
gray, unreal abstractions; and he remembered 
gratefully how the Christian religion, hardly 
less than the religion of the ancient Greeks, 
translating so much of its spiritual verity into 
things that may be seen, condescends in part 



to sanction this infirmity, if so it be, of our 
human existence, wherein the world of sense 
is so much with us, and welcomed this thought 
as a kind of keeper and sentinel over his soul 
therein. But certainly, he came more and 
more to be unable to care for, or think of 
soul but as in an actual body, or of any world 
but that wherein are water and trees, and 
where men and women look, so or so, and 
press actual hands. It was the trick even 
his pity learned, fastening those who suffered 
in anywise to his affections by a kind of sensible 
attachments. He would think of Julian, fallen 
into incurable sickness, as spoiled in the sweet 
blossom of his skin like pale amber, and his 
honey-like hair; of Cecil, early dead, as cut 
off from the lilies, from golden summer days, 
from women's voices; and then what com- 
forted him a little was the thought of the turn- 
ing of the child's flesh to violets in the turf 
above him. And thinking of the very poor, 
it was not the things which most men care 
most for that he yearned to give them; but 
fairer roses, perhaps, and power to taste quite 
as they will, at their ease and not task-burdened, 
a certain desirable, clear light in the new 
morning, through which sometimes he had 
noticed them, quite unconscious of it, on their 
way to their early toil. 

So he yielded himself to these things, to be 
played upon by them like a musical instru- 
ment, and began to note with deepening watch- 
fulness, but always with some puzzled, un- 
utterable longing in his enjoyment, the phases 
of the seasons and of the growing- or waning 
day, down even to the shadowy changes wrought 
on bare wall or ceiling — the light cast up 
from the snow, bringing out their darkest 
angles; the brown light in the cloud, which 
meant rain ; that almost too austere clearness, 
in the protracted light of the lengthening day, 
before warm weather began, as if it lingered 
but to make a severer workday, with the 
school-books opened earlier and later; that 
beam of June sunshine, at last, as he lay 
awake before the time, a way of gold-dust 
across the darkness; all the humming, the 
freshness, the perfume of the garden seemed 
to lie upon it — and coming in one afternoon 
in September, along the red gravel walk, to 
look for a basket of yellow crab-apples left in 
the cool, old parlour, he remembered it the 
more, and how the colours struck upon him, 
because a wasp on one bitten apple stung 
him, and he felt the passion of sudden, se- 
vere pain. For this too brought its curious 









THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE 



5o7 



reflections; and, in relief from it, he would 
wonder over it — how it had then been with 
him — puzzled at the depth of the charm or 
spell over him, which lay, for a little while 
at least, in the mere absence of pain ; once, 
especially, when an older boy taught him to 
make flowers of sealing-wax, and he had burnt 
his hand badly at the lighted taper, and been 
unable to sleep. He remembered that also 
afterwards, as a sort of typical thing — a white 
vision of heat about him, clinging closely, 
through the languid scent of the ointments 
put upon the place to make it well. 

Also, as he felt this pressure upon him of 
the sensible world, then, as often afterwards, 
there would come another sort of curious 
questioning how the last impressions of eye 
and ear might happen to him, how they would 
find him — the scent of the last flower, the 
soft yellowness of the last morning, the last 
recognition of some object of affection, hand 
or voice; it could not be but that the latest 
look of the eyes, before their final closing, 
would be strangely vivid; one would go with 
the hot tears, the cry, the touch of the wistful 
bystander, impressed how deeply on one ! or 
would it be, perhaps, a mere frail retiring of 
all things, great or little, away from one, into 
a level distance? 

For with this desire of physical beauty 
mingled itself early the fear of death — the 
fear of death intensified by the desire of beauty. 
Hitherto he had never gazed upon dead faces, 
as sometimes, afterwards, at the Morgue in 
Paris, or in that fair cemetery at Munich, 
where all the dead must go and lie in state 
before burial, behind glass windows, among 
the flowers and incense and holy candles — 
the aged clergy with their sacred ornaments, 
the young men in their dancing-shoes and 
spotless white linen — after which visits, those 
waxen, resistless faces would always live with 
him for many days, making the broadest sun- 
shine sickly. The child had heard indeed of 
the death of his father, and how, in the Indian 
station, a fever had taken him, so that though 
not in action he had yet died as a soldier; 
and hearing of the "resurrection of the just," 
he could think of him as still abroad in the 
world, somehow, for his protection — a grand, 
though perhaps rather terrible figure, in beauti- 
ful soldier's things, like the figure in the picture 
of Joshua's Vision in the Bible — and of that, 
round which the mourners moved so softly, 
and afterwards with such solemn singing, as 
but a worn-out garment left at a deserted 



lodging. So it was, until on a summer day 
he walked with his mother through a fair 
churchyard. In a bright dress he rambled 
among the graves, in the gay weather, and so 
came, in one corner, upon an open grave for 
a child — a dark space on the brilliant grass 
— the black mould lying heaped up round it, 
weighing down the little jewelled branches of 
the dwarf rose-bushes in flower. And there- 
with came, full-grown, never wholly to leave 
him, with the certainty that even children do 
sometimes die, the physical horror of death, 
with its wholly selfish recoil from the associa- 
tion of lower forms of life, and the suffocating 
weight above. No benign, grave figure in 
beautiful soldier's things any longer abroad in 
the world for his protection ! only a few poor, 
piteous bones; and above them, possibly, a 
certain sort of figure he hoped not to see. 
For sitting one day in the garden below an 
open window, he heard people talking, and 
could not but listen, how, in a sleepless hour, 
a sick woman had seen one of the dead sitting 
beside her, come to call her hence; and from 
the broken talk evolved with much clearness 
the notion that not all those dead people had 
really departed to the churchyard, nor were 
quite so motionless as they looked, but led a 
secret, half-fugitive life in their old homes, 
quite free by night, though sometimes visible 
in the day, dodging from room to room, with 
no great goodwill towards those who shared 
the place with them. All night the figure sat 
beside him in the reveries of his broken sleep, 
and was not quite gone in the morning — an 
odd, irreconcilable new member of the house- 
hold, making the sweet familiar chambers un- 
friendly and suspect by its uncertain presence. 
He could have hated the dead he had pitied 
so, for being thus. Afterwards he came to 
think of those poor, home-returning ghosts, 
which all men have fancied to themselves — 
the revenants — pathetically, as crying, or 
beating with vain hands at the doors, as the 
wind came, their cries distinguishable in it as 
a wilder inner note. But, always making 
death more unfamiliar still, that old experi- 
ence would ever, from time to time, return to 
him; even in the living he sometimes caught 
its likeness; at any time or place, in a moment, 
the faint atmosphere of the chamber of death 
would be breathed around him, and the image 
with the bound chin, the quaint smile, the 
straight, stiff feet, shed itself across the air 
upon the bright carpet, amid the gayest com- 
pany, or happiest communing with himself. 



5 o8 



WALTER PATER 



To most children the sombre questionings 
to which impressions like these attach them- 
selves, if they come at all, are actually sug- 
gested by religious books, which therefore they 
often regard with much secret distaste, and 
dismiss, as far as possible, from their habitual 
thoughts as a too depressing element in life. 
To Florian such impressions, these misgivings 
as to the ultimate tendency of the years, of the 
relationship between life and death, had been 
suggested spontaneously in the natural course 
of his mental growth by a strong innate sense 
for the soberer tones in things, further strength- 
ened by actual circumstances; and religious 
sentiment, that system of biblical ideas in 
which he had been brought up, presented itself 
to him as a thing that might soften and dignify, 
and light up as with a "lively hope," a melan- 
choly already deeply settled in him. So he 
yielded himself easily to religious impressions, 
and with a kind of mystical appetite for sacred 
things; the more as they came to him through 
a saintly person who loved him tenderly, and 
believed that this early pre-occupation with 
them already marked the child out for a saint. 
He began to love, for their own sakes, church 
lights, holy days, all that belonged to the 
comely order of the sanctuary, the secrets of 
its white linen, and holy vessels, and fonts of 
pure water; and its hieratic purity and sim- 
plicity became the type of something he 
desired always to have about him in actual 
life. He pored over the pictures in religious 
books, and knew by heart the exact mode in 
which the wrestling angel grasped Jacob, how 
Jacob looked in his mysterious sleep, how the 
bells and pomegranates were attached to the 
hem of Aaron's vestment, sounding sweetly as 
he glided over the turf of the holy place. His 
way of conceiving religion came then to be in 
effect what it ever afterwards remained — a 
sacred history indeed, but still more a sacred 
ideal, a transcendent version or representation, 
under intenser and more expressive light and 
shade, of human life and its familiar or excep- 
tional incidents, birth, death, marriage, youth, 
age, tears, joy, rest, sleep, waking — a mirror, 
towards which men might turn away their 
eyes from vanity and dulness, and see them- 
selves therein as angels, with their daily meat 
and drink, even, become a kind of sacred 
transaction — a complementary strain or bur- 
den, applied to our everyday existence, whereby 
the stray snatches of music in it reset them- 
selves, and fall into the scheme of some 
higher and more consistent harmony. A place 



adumbrated itself in his thoughts, wherein 
those sacred personalities, which are at once 
the reflex and the pattern of our nobler phases 
of life, housed themselves; and this region in 
his intellectual scheme all subsequent experi- 
ence did but tend still further to realise and 
define. Some ideal, hieratic persons he would 
always need to occupy it and keep a warmth 
there. And he could hardly understand those 
who felt no such need at all, finding themselves 
quite happy without such heavenly companion- 
ship, and sacred double of their life, beside 
them. 

Thus a constant substitution of the typical 
for the actual took place in his thoughts. 
Angels might be met by the way, under 
English elm or beech-tree; mere messengers 
seemed like angels, bound on celestial errands; 
a deep mysticity brooded over real meetings 
and partings ; marriages were made in heaven ; 
and deaths also, with hands of angels there- 
upon, to bear soul and body quietly asunder, 
each to its appointed rest. All the 'acts and 
accidents of daily life borrowed a sacred 
colour and significance; the very colours of 
things became themselves weighty with mean- 
ings like the sacred stuffs of Moses' tabernacle, 
full of penitence or peace. Sentiment, con- 
gruous in the first instance only with those 
divine transactions, the deep, effusive unction 
of the House of Bethany, was assumed as the 
due attitude for the reception of our every- 
day existence; and for a time he walked 
through the world in a sustained, not un- 
pleasurable awe, generated by the habitual 
recognition, beside every circumstance and 
event of life, of its celestial correspondent. 

Sensibility — the desire of physical beauty — 
a strange biblical awe, which made any refer- 
ence to the unseen act on him like solemn 
music — these qualities the child took away 
with him, when, at about the age of twelve 
years, he left the old house, and was taken 
to live in another place. He had never left 
home before, and, anticipating much from 
this change, had long dreamed over it, jealously 
counting the days till the time fixed for de- 
parture should come ; had been a little careless 
about others even, in his strong desire for it 
— when Lewis fell sick, for instance, and they 
must wait still two days longer. At last the 
morning came, very fine ; and all things — 
the very pavement with its dust, at the road- 
side — seemed to have a white, pearl-like 
lustre in them. They were to travel by a 
favourite road on which he had often walked 






ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



509 



a certain distance, and on one of those two 
prisoner days, when Lewis was sick, had 
walked farther than ever before, in his great 
desire to reach the new place. They had 
started and gone a little way when a pet bird 
was found to have been left behind, and must 
even now — so it presented itself to him — 
have already all the appealing fierceness and 
wild self-pity at heart of one left by others to 
perish of hunger in a closed house; and he 
returned to fetch it, himself in hardly less 
stormy distress. But as he passed in search 
of it from room to room, lying so pale, with a 
look of meekness in their denudation, and at 
last through that little, stripped white room, 
the aspect of the place touched him like the 
face of one dead; and a clinging back towards 
it came over him, so intense that he knew it 
would last long, and spoiling all his pleasure 
in the realisation of a thing so eagerly antici- 
pated. And so, with the bird found, but him- 
self in an agony of home-sickness, thus capri- 
ciously sprung up within him, he was driven 
quickly away, far into the rural distance, so 
fondly speculated on, of that favourite country- 
road. 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

(1850-1894) 

FRANCOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, 
AND HOUSEBREAKER 

Perhaps one of the most curious revolutions 
in literary history is the sudden bull's-eye light 
cast by M. Longnon on the obscure existence 
of Francois Villon. His book is not remark- 
able merely as a chapter of biography exhumed 
after four centuries. To readers of the poet it 
will recall, with a flavour of satire, that char- 
acteristic passage in which he bequeaths his 
spectacles — with a humorous reservation of 
the case — to the hospital for blind paupers 
known as the Fifteen-Score. Thus equipped, 
let the blind paupers go and separate the good 
from the bad in the cemetery of the Innocents ! 
For his own part the poet can see no distinc- 
tion. Much have the dead people made of 
their advantages. What does it matter now 
that they have lain in state beds and nourished 
portly bodies upon cakes and cream ! Here 
they all lie, to be trodden in the mud ; the large 
estate and the small, sounding virtue and 
adroit or powerful vice, in very much the 
same condition; and a bishop not to be dis- 



tinguished from a lamplighter with even the 
strongest spectacles. 

Such was Villon's cynical philosophy. Four 
hundred years after his death, when surely all 
danger might be considered at an end, a pair 
of critical spectacles have been applied to his 
own remains; and though he left behind him 
a sufficiently ragged reputation from the first, 
it is only after these four hundred years that 
his delinquencies have been finally tracked 
home, and we can assign him to his proper 
place among the good or wicked. It is a 
staggering thought, and one that affords a fine 
figure of the imperishability of men's acts, that 
the stealth of the private inquiry office can be 
carried so far back into the dead and dusty 
past. We are not so soon quit of our con- 
cerns as Villon fancied. In the extreme of 
dissolution, when not so much as a man's 
name is remembered, when his dust is scattered 
to the four winds, and perhaps the very grave 
and the very graveyard where he was laid to 
rest have been forgotten, desecrated, and buried 
under populous towns, — even in this extreme 
let an antiquary fall across a sheet of manu- 
script, and the name will be recalled, the old 
infamy will pop out into daylight like a toad 
out of a fissure in the rock, and the shadow 
of the shade of what was once a man will be 
heartily pilloried by his descendants. A little 
while ago and Villon was almost totally for- 
gotten; then he was revived for the sake of 
his verses; and now he is being revived with a 
vengeance in the detection of his misdemeanours. 
How unsubstantial is this projection of a man's 
existence, which can lie in abeyance for cen- 
turies and then be brushed up again and set 
forth for the consideration of posterity by a 
few dips in an antiquary's inkpot ! This pre- 
carious tenure of fame goes a long way to 
justify those (and they are not few) who prefer 
cakes and cream in the immediate present. 



A Wild Youth 

Francois de Montcorbier, alias Francois des 
Loges, alias Francois Villon, alias Michel 
Mouton, Master of Arts in the University of 
Paris, was born in that city in the summer of 
143 1. It was a memorable year for France 
on other and higher considerations. A great- 
hearted girl and a poor-hearted boy made, 
the one her last, the other his first appearance 
on the public stage of that unhappy country. 
On the 30th of May the ashes of Joan of Arc 



5io 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



were thrown into the Seine, and on the 2d of 
December our Henry Sixth made his Joyous 
Entry dismally enough into disaffected and 
depopulating Paris. Sword and fire still 
ravaged the open country. On a single April 
Saturday twelve hundred persons, besides 
children, made their escape out of the starv- 
ing capital. The hangman, as is not unin- 
teresting to note in connection with Master 
Francis, was kept hard at work in 143 1; on 
the last of April and on the 4th of May alone, 
sixty-two bandits swung from Paris gibbets. 
A more confused or troublous time it would 
have been difficult to select for a start in life. 
Not even a man's nationality was certain; for 
the people of Paris there was no such thing 
as a Frenchman. The English were the Eng- 
lish indeed, but the French were only the 
Armagnacs, whom, with Joan of Arc at their 
head, they had beaten back from under their 
ramparts not two years before. Such public 
sentiment as they had centred about their dear 
Duke of Burgundy, and the dear Duke had 
no more urgent business than to keep out 
of their neighbourhood. ... At least, and 
whether he liked it or not, our disreputable 
troubadour was tubbed and swaddled as a sub- 
ject of the English crown. 

We hear nothing of Villon's father except 
that he was poor and of mean extraction. His 
mother was given piously, which does not 
imply very much in an old Frenchwoman, 
and quite uneducated. He had an uncle, a 
monk in an abbey at Angers, who must have 
prospered beyond the family average, and was 
reported to be worth five or six hundred 
crowns. Of this uncle and his money-box 
the reader will hear once more. In 1448 
Francis became a student of the University of 
Paris; in 1450 he took the degree of Bachelor, 
and in 1452 that of Master of Arts. His 
bourse, or the sum paid weekly for his board, 
was of the amount of two sous. Now two 
sous was about the price of a pound of salt 
butter in the bad times of 141 7; it was the 
price of half-a-pound in the worse times of 
1419; and in 1444, just four years before Vil- 
lon joined the University, it seems to have been 
taken as the average wage for a day's manual 
labour. In short, it cannot have been a very 
profuse allowance to keep a sharp-set lad in 
breakfast and supper for seven mortal days; 
and Villon's share of the cakes and pastry 
and general good cheer, to which he is never 
weary of referring, must have been slender 
from the first. 



The educational arrangements of the Uni- 
versity of Paris were, to our way of thinking, 
somewhat incomplete. Worldly and monkish 
elements were presented in a curious confusion, 
which the youth might disentangle for him- 
self. If he had an opportunity, on the one 
hand, of acquiring much hair-drawn divinity 
and a taste for formal disputation, he was put 
in the way of much gross and flaunting vice 
upon the other. The lecture room of a 
scholastic doctor was sometimes under the 
same roof with establishments of a very dif- 
ferent and peculiarly unedifying order. The 
students had extraordinary privileges, which 
by all accounts they abused extraordinarily. 
And while some condemned themselves to an 
almost sepulchral regularity and seclusion, 
others fled the schools, swaggered in the street 
"with their thumbs in their girdle," passed 
the night in riot, and behaved themselves as 
the worthy forerunners of Jehan Frollo in the 
romance of Notre Dame de Paris. Villon tells 
us himself that he was among the truants, 
but we hardly needed his avowal. The bur- 
lesque erudition in which he sometimes in- 
dulged implies no more than the merest 
smattering of knowledge; whereas his ac- 
quaintance with blackguard haunts and in- 
dustries could only have been acquired by early 
and consistent impiety and idleness. He 
passed his degrees, it is true; but some of 
us who have been to modern universities will 
make their own reflections on the value of the 
test. As for his three pupils, Colin Laurent, 
Girard Gossouyn, and Jehan Marceau — if 
they were really his pupils in any serious 
sense — what can we say but God help them ! 
And sure enough, by his own description, 
they turned out as ragged, rowdy, and ignorant 
as was to be looked for from the views and 
manners of their rare preceptor. 

At some time or other, before or during his 
university career, the poet was adopted by 
Master Guillaume de Villon, chaplain of Saint 
Benoit-le-Betourne near the Sorbonne. From 
him he borrowed the surname by which he is 
known to posterity. It was most likely from 
his house, called the Porte Rouge, and situated 
in a garden in the cloister of Saint Benoit, 
that Master Francis heard the bell of the Sor- 
bonne ring out the Angelus while he was fin- 
ishing his Small Testament at Christmastide 
in 1446. Toward this benefactor he usually 
gets credit for a respectable display of grati- 
tude. But with his trap and pitfall style of 
writing, it is easy to make too sure. His 



FRANCOIS VILLON 



5ii 



sentiments are about as much to be relied on 
as those of a professional beggar; and in this, 
as in so many other matters, he comes toward 
us whining and piping the eye, and goes off 
again with a whoop and his finger to his nose. 
Thus, he calls Guillaume de Villon his "more 
than father," thanks him with a great show of 
sincerity for having helped him out of many 
scrapes, and bequeaths him his portion of 
renown. But the portion of renown which 
belonged to a young thief, distinguished (if, at 
the period when he wrote this legacy, he was 
distinguished at all) for having written some 
more or less obscene and scurrilous ballads, 
must have been little fitted to gratify the self- 
respect or increase the reputation of a benevo- 
lent ecclesiastic. The same remark applies to 
a subsequent legacy of the poet's library, with 
specification of one work which was plainly 
neither decent nor devout. We are thus left 
on the horns of a dilemma. If the chaplain 
was a godly, philanthropic personage, who had 
tried to graft good principles and good be- 
haviour on this wild slip of an adopted son, 
these jesting legacies would obviously cut him 
to the heart. The position of an adopted son 
toward his adoptive father is one full of delicacy; 
where a man lends his name he looks for great 
consideration. And this legacy of Villon's 
portion of renown may be taken as the mere 
fling of an unregenerate scapegrace who has 
wit enough to recognise in his own shame the 
readiest weapon of offence against a prosy 
benefactor's feelings. The gratitude of Master 
Francis figures, on this reading, as a frightful 
minus quantity. If, on the other hand, those 
jests were given and taken in good humour, 
the whole relation between the pair degenerates 
into the unedifying complicity of a debauched 
old chaplain and a witty and dissolute young 
scholar. At this rate the house with the red 
door may have rung with the most mundane 
minstrelsy; and it may have been below its 
roof that Villon, through a hole in the plaster, 
studied, as he tells us, the leisures of a rich 
ecclesiastic. 

It was, perhaps, of some moment in the 
poet's life that he should have inhabited the 
cloister of Saint Benoit. Three of the most 
remarkable among his early acquaintances 
are Catherine de Vauselles, for whom he enter- 
tained a short-lived affection and an endur- 
ing and most unmanly resentment; Regnier de 
Montigny, a young blackguard of good birth; 
and Colin de Cayeux, a fellow with a marked 
aptitude for picking locks. Now we are on 



a foundation of mere conjecture, but it is at 
least curious to find that two of the canons 
of Saint Benoit answered respectively to the 
names of Pierre de Vaucel and Etienne de 
Montigny, and that there was a householder 
called Nicolas de Cayeux in a street — the 
Rue des Poirees — in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the cloister. M. Longnon is 
almost ready to identify Catherine as the 
niece of Pierre; Regnier as the nephew of 
Etienne, and Colin as the son of Nicolas. 
Without going so far, it must be owned that 
the approximation of names is significant. As 
we go on to see the part played by each of 
these persons in the sordid melodrama of the 
poet's life, we shall come to regard it as even 
more notable. Is it not Clough who has re- 
marked that, after all, everything lies in jux- 
taposition? Many a man's destiny has been 
settled by nothing apparently more grave than 
a pretty face on the opposite side of the street 
and a couple of bad companions round the 
corner. 

Catherine de Vauselles (or de Vaucel — the 
change is within the limits of Villon's license) 
had plainly delighted in the poet's conversa- 
tion; near neighbours or not, they were much 
together; and Villon made no secret of his 
court, and suffered himself to believe that his 
feeling was repaid in kind. This may have 
been an error from the first, or he may have 
estranged her by subsequent misconduct or 
temerity. One can easily imagine Villon an 
impatient wooer. One thing, at least, is sure: 
that the affair terminated in a manner bitterly 
humiliating to Master Francis. In presence 
of his lady-love, perhaps under her window 
and certainly with her connivance, he was un- 
mercifully thrashed by one Noe le Joly — 
beaten, as he says himself, like dirty linen 
on the washing-board. It is characteristic that 
his malice had notably increased between the 
time when he wrote the Small Testament im- 
mediately on the back of the occurrence, and 
the time when he wrote the Large Testament 
five years after. On the latter occasion noth- 
ing is too bad for his "damsel with the twisted 
nose," as he calls her. She is spared neither 
hint nor accusation, and he tells his messenger 
to accost her with the vilest insults. Villon, 
it is thought, was out of Paris when these 
amenities escaped his pen; or perhaps the 
strong arm of Noe le Joly would have been 
again in requisition. So ends the love story, 
if love story it may properly be called. Poets 
are not necessarily fortunate in love; but they 



5 12 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



usually fall among more romantic circum- 
stances and bear their disappointment with a 
better grace. 

The neighbourhood of Regnier de Montigny 
and Colin de Cayeux was probably more in- 
fluential on his after life than the contempt of 
Catherine. For a man who is greedy of all 
pleasures, and provided with little money and 
less dignity of character, we may prophesy a 
safe and speedy voyage downward. Humble 
or even truckling virtue may walk unspotted 
in this life. But only those who despise the 
pleasures can afford to despise the opinion of 
the world. A man of a strong, heady tem- 
perament, like Villon, is very differently 
tempted. His eyes lay hold on all provoca- 
tions greedily, and his heart flames up at a 
look into imperious desire; he is snared and 
broached to by anything and everything, from 
a pretty face to a piece of pastry in a cook- 
shop window; he will drink the rinsing of the 
wine cup, stay the latest at the tavern party; 
tap at the lit windows, follow the sound of 
singing, and beat the whole neighbourhood for 
another reveller, as he goes reluctantly home- 
ward; and grudge himself every hour of sleep 
as a black empty period in which he cannot 
follow after pleasure. Such a person is lost 
if he have not dignity, or, failing that, at least 
pride, which is its shadow and in many ways 
its substitute. Master Francis, I fancy, would 
follow his own eager instincts without much 
spiritual struggle. And we soon find him 
fallen among thieves in sober, literal earnest, 
and counting as acquaintances the most dis- 
reputable people he could lay his hands on: 
fellows who stole ducks in Paris Moat; ser- 
geants of the criminal court, and archers of 
the watch; blackguards who slept at night 
under the butchers' stalls, and for whom the 
aforesaid archers peered about carefully with 
lanterns; Regnier de Montigny, Colin de 
Cayeux, and their crew, all bound on a favour- 
ing breeze toward the gallows; the disorderly 
abbess of Port Royal, who went about at fair 
time with soldiers and thieves, and conducted 
her abbey on the queerest principles; and 
most likely Perette Mauger, the great Paris 
receiver of stolen goods, not yet dreaming, 
poor woman! of the last scene of her career 
when Henry Cousin, executor of the high 
justice, shall bury her, alive and most reluctant, 
in front of the new Montigny gibbet. Nay, 
our friend soon began to take a foremost rank 
in this society. He could string off verses, 
which is always an agreeable talent; and he 



could make himself useful in many other ways. 
The whole ragged army of Bohemia, and who- 
soever loved good cheer without at all loving 
to work and pay for it, are addressed in con- 
temporary verses as the "Subjects of Francois 
Villon." He was a good genius to all hungry 
and unscrupulous persons; and became the 
hero of a whole legendary cycle of tavern 
tricks and cheateries. At best, these were 
doubtful levities, rather too thievish for a 
schoolboy, rather too gamesome for a thief. 
But he would not linger long in this equivocal 
border land. He must soon have complied 
with his surroundings. He was one who 
would go where the cannikin clinked, not car- 
ing who should pay; and from supping in the 
wolves' den, there is but a step to hunting 
with the pack. And here, as I am on the 
chapter of his degradation, I shall say all I 
mean to say about its darkest expression, and 
be done with it for good. Some charitable 
critics see no more than a jcu d 1 esprit, a graceful 
and trifling exercise of the imagination, in the 
grimy ballad of Fat Peg (Grosse M argot). I 
am not able to follow these gentlemen to this 
polite extreme. Out of all Villon's works that 
ballad stands forth in flaring reality, gross and 
ghastly, as a thing written in a contraction of 
disgust. M. Longnon shows us more and 
more clearly at every page that we are to read 
our poet literally, that his names are the names 
of real persons, and the events he chronicles 
were actual events. But even if the tendency 
of criticism had run the other way, this ballad 
would have gone far to prove itself. I can 
well understand the reluctance of worthy per- 
sons in this matter; for of course it is un- 
pleasant to think of a man of genius as one 
who held, in the words of Marina to Boult — 

"A place, for which the paincd'st fiend 
Of hell would not in reputation change." 

But beyond this natural unwillingness, the 
whole difficulty of the case springs from a 
highly virtuous ignorance of life. Paris now 
is not so different from the Paris of then; 
and the whole of the doings of Bohemia are 
not written in the sugar-candy pastorals of 
Murger. It is really not at all surprising that 
a young man of the fifteenth century, with a 
knack of making verses, should accept his 
bread upon disgraceful terms. The race of 
those who do is not extinct ; and some of them 
to this day write the prettiest verses imagi- 
nable. . . . After this, it were impossible for 






FRANCOIS VILLON 



513 



Master Francis to fall lower: to go and steal 
for himself would be an admirable advance 
from every point of view, divine or human. 

And yet it is not as a thief, but as a homi- 
cide, that he makes his first appearance before 
angry justice. On June 5, 1455, when he was 
about twenty-four, and had been Master of 
Arts for a matter of three years, we behold 
him for the first time quite definitely. Angry 
justice had, as it were, photographed him in 
the act of his homicide; and M. Longnon, 
rummaging among old deeds, has turned up 
the negative and printed it off for our instruc- 
tion. Villon had been supping — copiously 
we may believe — and sat on a stone bench 
in front of the Church of Saint Benoit, in com- 
pany with a priest called Gilles and a woman 
of the name of Isabeau. It was nine o'clock, 
a mighty late hour for the period, and evi- 
dently a fine summer's night. Master Francis 
carried a mantle, like a prudent man, to keep 
him from the dews (serain), and had a sword 
below it dangling from his girdle. So these 
three dallied in front of St. Benoit, taking their 
pleasure {pour soy esbatrc). Suddenly there 
arrived upon the scene a priest, Philippe 
Chermoye or Sermaise, also with sword and 
cloak, and accompanied by one Master Jehan 
le Mardi. Sermaise, according to Villon's 
account, which is all we have to go upon, 
came up blustering and denying God; as 
Villon rose to make room for him upon the 
bench, thrust him rudely back into his place; 
and finally drew his sword and cut open his 
lower lip, by what I should imagine was a very 
clumsy stroke. Up to this point, Villon pro- 
fesses to have been a model of courtesy, even 
of feebleness; and the brawl, in his version, 
reads like the fable of the wolf and the lamb. 
But now the lamb was roused; he drew his 
sword, stabbed Sermaise in the groin, knocked 
him on the head with a big stone, and then, 
leaving him to his fate, went away to have his 
own lip doctored by a barber of the name of 
Fouquet. In one version, he says that Gilles, 
Isabeau, and Le Mardi ran away at the first 
high words, and that he and Sermaise had it 
out alone; in another, Le Mardi is represented 
as returning and wresting Villon's sword from 
him: the reader may please himself. Ser- 
maise was picked up, lay all that night in the 
prison of Saint Benoit, where he was examined 
by an official of the Chatelet and expressly 
pardoned Villon, and died on the following 
Saturday in the Hotel Dieu. 

This, as I have said, was in June. Not be- 



fore January of the next year could Villon 
extract a pardon from the king; but while his 
hand was in, he got two. One is for " Francois 
des Loges, alias {autrement dit) de Villon"; 
and the other runs in the name of Francois 
de Montcorbier. Nay, it appears there was a 
further complication; for in the narrative of 
the first of these documents, it is mentioned 
that he passed himself off upon Fouquet, the 
barber-surgeon, as one Michel Mouton. M. 
Longnon has a theory that this unhappy acci- 
dent with Sermaise was the cause of Villon's 
subsequent irregularities; and that up to that 
moment he had been the pink of good be- 
haviour. But the matter has to my eyes a 
more dubious air. A pardon necessary for 
Des Loges and another for Montcorbier? and 
these two the same person? and one or both 
of them known by the alias of Villon, how- 
ever honestly come by? and lastly, in the heat 
of the moment, a fourth name thrown out 
with an assured countenance? A ship is not 
to be trusted that sails under so many colours. 
This is not the simple bearing of innocence. 
No — the young master was already treading 
crooked paths; already, he would start and 
blench at a hand upon his shoulder, with the 
look we know so well in the face of Hogarth's 
Idle Apprentice; already, in the blue devils, 
he would see Henry Cousin, the executor of 
high justice, going in dolorous procession 
toward Montfaucon, and hear the wind and 
the birds crying around Paris gibbet. 

A Gang of Thieves 

In spite of the prodigious number of peo- 
ple who managed to get hanged, the fifteenth 
century was by no means a bad time for crim- 
inals. A great confusion of parties and great 
dust of fighting favoured the escape of private 
housebreakers and quiet fellows who stole ducks 
in Paris Moat. Prisons were leaky; and as 
we shall see, a man with a few crowns in his 
pocket and perhaps some acquaintance among 
the officials, could easily slip out and become 
once more a free marauder. There was no 
want of a sanctuary where he might harbour 
until troubles blew by; and accomplices helped 
each other with more or less good faith. Clerks, 
above all, had remarkable facilities for a crimi- 
nal way of life; for they were privileged, except 
in cases of notorious incorrigibility, to be 
plucked from the hands of rude secular justice 
and tried by a tribunal of their own. In 1402, a 
couple of thieves, both clerks of the University, 



5i4 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



sity, were condemned to death by the Provost 
of Paris. As they were taken to Montfaucon, 
they kept crying "high and clearly" for their 
benefit of clergy, but were none the less piti- 
lessly hanged and gibbeted. Indignant Alma 
Mater interfered before the king; and the 
Provost was deprived of all royal offices, and 
condemned to return the bodies and erect a 
great stone cross, on the road from Paris to the 
gibbet, graven with the effigies of these two holy 
martyrs. We shall hear more of the benefit 
of clergy; for after this the reader will not be 
surprised to meet with thieves in the shape of 
tonsured clerks, or even priests and monks. 

To a knot of such learned pilferers our poet 
certainly belonged; and by turning over a few 
more of M. Longnon's negatives, we shall get a 
clear idea of their character and doings. Mon- 
tignyand De Cayeux are names already known; 
Guy Tabary, Petit-Jehan, Dom Nicolas, little 
Thibault, who was both clerk and goldsmith, 
and who made picklocks and melted plate for 
himself and his companions — with these the 
reader has still to become acquainted. Petit- 
Jehan and De Cayeux were handy fellows and 
enjoyed a useful preeminence in honour of their 
doings with the picklock. "Diet as des Cahyeus 
est fort is operator croehetorum" says Tabary's 
interrogation, " sed dictus Petit-Jehan, ejus so- 
e ins, est J "orchis operator." But the flower of 
the flock was little Thibault ; it was reported 
that no lock could stand before him; he had a 
persuasive hand; let us salute capacity wher- 
ever we may find it. Perhaps the term gang is 
not quite properly applied to the persons whose 
fortunes we are now about to follow; rather 
they were independent malefactors, socially 
intimate, and occasionally joining together for 
some serious operation, just as modern stock- 
jobbers form a syndicate for an important loan. 
Nor were they at all particular to any branch of 
misdoing. They did not scrupulously confine 
themselves to a single sort of theft, as I hear is 
common among modern thieves. They were 
ready for anything, from pitch-and-toss to 
manslaughter. Montigny, for instance, had 
neglected neither of these extremes, and we 
find him accused of cheating at games of haz- 
ard on the one hand, and on the other of the 
murder of one Thevenin Pensete in a house by 
the Cemetery of St. John. If time had only 
spared us some particulars, might not this last 
have furnished us with the matter of a grisly 
winter's tale? 

At Christmas-time in 1446, readers of Villon 
will remember that he was engaged on the 



Small Testament. About the same period, 
circa festum nativitatis Domini, he took part 
in a memorable supper at the Mule Tavern, 
in front of the Church of St. Mathurin. 
Tabary, who seems to have been very much 
Villon's creature, had ordered the supper in the 
course of the afternoon. He was a man who 
had had troubles in his time and languished in 
the Bishop of Paris's prisons on a suspicion of 
picking locks; confiding, convivial, not very 
astute — who had copied out a whole im- 
proper romance with his own right hand. 
This supper-party was to be his first intro- 
duction to De Cayeux and Petit-Jehan, which 
was probably a matter of some concern to the 
poor man's muddy wits; in the sequel, at 
least, he speaks of both with an undisguised 
respect, based on professional inferiority in the 
matter of picklocks. Dom Nicolas, a Picardy 
monk, was the fifth and last at table. When 
supper had been despatched and fairly washed 
down, we may suppose, with white Baigneux or 
red Beaune, which were favourite wines among 
the fellowship, Tabary was solemnly sworn 
over to secrecy on the night's performances; 
and the party left the Mule and proceeded to an 
unoccupied house belonging to Robert de Saint- 
Simon. This, over a low wall, they entered 
without difficulty. All but Tabary took off their 
upper garments; a ladder was found and ap- 
plied to the high wall which separated Saint- 
Simon's house from the court of the College 
of Navarre; the four fellows in their shirt- 
sleeves (as we might say) clambered over in a 
twinkling; and Master Guy Tabary remained 
alone beside the overcoats. From the court the 
burglars made their way into the vestry of the 
chapel, where they found a large chest, strength- 
ened with iron bands and closed with four 
locks. One of these locks they picked, and 
then, by levering up the corner, forced the 
other three. Inside was a small coffer, of 
walnut wood, also barred with iron, but fastened 
with only three locks, which were all com- 
fortably picked by way of the keyhole. In the 
walnut coffer — a joyous sight by our thieves' 
lantern — were five hundred crowns of gold. 
There was some talk of opening the aumries, 
where, if they had only known, a booty eight 
or nine times greater lay ready to their hand; 
but one of the party (I have a humorous sus- 
picion it was Dom Nicolas, the Picardy monk) 
hurried them away. It was ten o'clock when 
they mounted the ladder; it was about mid- 
night before Tabary beheld them coming back. 
To him they gave ten crowns, and promised a 



FRANCOIS VILLON 



5*5 



share of a two-crown dinner on the morrow; 
whereat we may suppose his mouth watered. 
In course of time, he got wind of the real amount 
of their booty and understood how scurvily he 
had been used ; but he seems to have borne no 
malice. How could he, against such superb 
operators as Petit- Jehan and De Cayeux; or 
a person like Villon, who could have made a 
new improper romance out of his own head, 
instead of merely copying an old one with 
mechanical right hand? 

The rest of the winter was not uneventful 
for the gang. First they made a demon- 
stration against the Church of St. Mathurin 
after chalices, and were ignominiously chased 
away by barking dogs. Then Tabary fell out 
with Casin Chollet, one of the fellows who 
stole ducks in Paris Moat, who subsequently 
became a sergeant of the Chatelet and dis- 
tinguished himself by misconduct, followed by 
imprisonment and public castigation, during 
the wars of Louis Eleventh. The quarrel was 
not conducted with a proper regard to the king's 
peace, and the pair publicly belaboured each 
other until the police stepped in, and Master 
Tabary was cast once more into the prisons of 
the Bishop. While he still lay in durance, another 
job was cleverly executed by the band in broad 
daylight, at the Augustine Monastery. Brother 
Guillaume Coiffier was beguiled by an accom- 
plice to St. Mathurin to say mass; and during 
his absence, his chamber was entered and five or 
six hundred crowns in money and some silver- 
plate successfully abstracted. A melancholy 
man was CoifTier on his return ! Eight crowns 
from this adventure were forwarded by little 
Thibault to the incarcerated Tabary; and with 
these he bribed the jailer and reappeared in 
Paris taverns. Some time before or shortly 
after this, Villon set out for Angers, as he had 
promised in the Small Testament. The object 
of this excursion was not merely to avoid the 
presence of his cruel mistress or the strong arm 
of Noe le Joly, but to plan a deliberate robbery 
on his uncle the monk. As soon as he had 
properly studied the ground, the others were 
to go over in force from Paris — picklocks and 
all — and away with my uncle's strongbox ! 
This throws a comical sidelight on his own 
accusation against his relatives, that they had 
"forgotten natural duty" and disowned him 
because he was poor. A poor relation is a dis- 
tasteful circumstance at the best, but a poor 
relation who plans deliberate robberies against 
those of his blood, and trudges hundreds of 
weary leagues to put them into execution, is 



surely a little on the wrong side of toleration. 
The uncle at Angers may have been monstrously 
undutiful; but the nephew from Paris was 
upsides with him. 

On the 23d April, that venerable and dis- 
creet person, Master Pierre Marchand, Curate 
and Prior of Paray-le-Monial, in the diocese 
of Chartres, arrived in Paris and put up at the 
sign of the Three Chandeliers, in the Rue de la 
Huchette. Next day, or the day after, as he 
was breakfasting at the sign of the Arm-chair, 
he fell into talk with two customers, one of 
whom was a priest and the other our friend 
Tabary. The idiotic Tabary became mighty 
confidential as to his past life. Pierre Mar- 
chand, who was an acquaintance of Guillaume 
Coiffier's and had sympathised with him over 
his loss, pricked up his ears at the mention of 
picklocks, and led on the transcriber of im- 
proper romances from one thing to another, 
until they were fast friends. For picklocks 
the Prior of Paray professed a keen curiosity; 
but Tabary, upon some late alarm, had thrown 
all his into the Seine. Let that be no difficulty, 
however, for was there not little Thibault, 
who could make them of all shapes and sizes, 
and to whom Tabary, smelling an accomplice, 
would be only too glad to introduce his new 
acquaintance? On the morrow, accordingly, 
they met; and Tabary, after having first wet 
his whistle at the Prior's expense, led him 
to Notre Dame and presented him to four or 
five "young companions," who were keeping 
sanctuary in the church. They were all clerks, 
recently escaped, like Tabary himself, from the 
episcopal prisons. Among these we may notice 
Thibault, the operator, a little fellow of twenty- 
six, wearing long hair behind. The Prior ex- 
pressed, through Tabary, his anxiety to be- 
come their accomplice and altogether such as 
they were (de leur sortc ct dc leurs complices). 
Mighty polite they showed themselves, and made 
him many fine speeches in return. But for all 
that, perhaps because they had longer heads 
than Tabary, perhaps because it is less easy to 
wheedle men in a body, they kept obstinately 
to generalities and gave him no information 
as to their exploits, past, present, or to come. 
I suppose Tabary groaned under this reserve ; 
for no sooner were he and the Prior out of the 
church than he fairly emptied his heart to him, 
gave him full details of many hanging matters 
in the past, and explained the future intentions 
of the band. The scheme of the hour was to 
rob another Augustine monk, Robert de la 
Porte, and in this the Prior agreed to take a hand 



5i6 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



with simulated greed. Thus, in the course of 
two days, he had turned this wineskin of a 
Tabary inside out. For a while longer the 
farce was carried on ; the Prior was introduced 
to Petit-Jehan, whom he describes as a little, 
very smart man of thirty, with a black beard 
and a short jacket ; an appointment was made 
and broken in the de la Porte affair; Tabary 
had some breakfast at the Prior's charge and 
leaked out more secrets under the influence of 
wine and friendship; and then all of a sudden, 
on the 17th of May, an alarm sprang up, the 
Prior picked up his skirts and walked quietly 
over to the Chatelet to make a deposition, and 
the whole band took to their heels and vanished 
out of Paris and the sight of the police. 

Vanish as they like, they all go with a clog 
about their feet. Sooner or later, here or there, 
they will be caught in the fact, and ignomini- 
ously sent home. From our vantage of four 
centuries afterward, it is odd and pitiful to 
watch the order in which the fugitives are 
captured and dragged in. 

Montigny was the first. In August of that 
same year, he was laid by the heels on many 
grievous counts; sacrilegious robberies, frauds, 
incorrigibility, and that bad business about 
Thevenin Pensete in the house by the Cemetery 
of St. John. He was reclaimed by the eccle- 
siastical authorities as a clerk; but the claim 
was rebutted on the score of incorrigibility, 
and ultimately fell to the ground; and he was 
condemned to death by the Provost of Paris. 
It was a very rude hour for Montigny, but hope 
was not yet over. He was a fellow of some 
birth; his father had been king's pantler; his 
sister, probably married to some one about the 
Court, was in the family way, and her health 
would be endangered if the execution was 
proceeded with. So down comes Charles the 
Seventh with letters of mercy, commuting the 
penalty to a year in a dungeon on bread and 
water, and a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. 
James in Galicia. Alas! the document was 
incomplete; it did not contain the full tale of 
Montigny's enormities; it did not recite that he 
had been denied benefit of clergy, and it said 
nothing about Thevenin Pensete. Montigny's 
hour was at hand. Benefit of clergy, honourable 
descent from king's pantler, sister in the family 
way, royal letters of commutation — all were of 
no avail. He had been in prison in Rouen, in 
Tours, in Bordeaux, and four times already in 
Paris; and out of all these he had come scath- 
less; but now he must make a little excursion 
as far as Montfaucon with Henry Cousin, 



executor of high justice. There let him swing 
among the carrion crows. 

About a year later, in July, 1458, the police 
laid hands on Tabary. Before the ecclesiasti- 
cal commissary he was twice examined, and, on 
the latter occasion, put to the question ordinary 
and extraordinary. What a dismal change from 
pleasant suppers at the Mule, where he sat in 
triumph with expert operators and great wits! 
He is at the lees of life, poor rogue ; and those 
fingers which once transcribed improper 
romances are now agonisingly stretched upon 
the rack. We have no sure knowledge, but 
we may have a shrewd guess of the conclusion. 
Tabary, the admirer, would go the same way 
as those whom he admired. 

The last we hear of is Colin de Cayeux. 
He was caught in autumn 1460, in the great 
Church of St. Leu d'Esserens, which makes so 
fine a figure in the pleasant Oise valley between 
Creil and Beaumont. He was reclaimed by no 
less than two bishops; but the Procureur for 
the Provost held fast by incorrigible Colin. 
1460 was an ill-starred year: for justice was 
making a clean sweep of "poor and indigent 
persons, thieves, cheats, and lockpickers," 
in the neighbourhood of Paris; and Colin de 
Cayeux, with many others, was condemned to 
death and hanged. 

Villon and the Gallows 

Villon was still absent on the Angers expedi- 
tion when the Prior of Paray sent such a bomb- 
shell among his accomplices; and the dates of 
his return and arrest remain undiscoverable. 
M. Campaux plausibly enough opined for the 
autumn of 1457, which would make him closely 
follow on Montigny, and the first of those de- 
nounced by the Prior to fall into the toils. We 
may suppose, at least, that it was not long 
thereafter; we may suppose him competed for 
between lay and clerical Courts; and we may 
suppose him alternately pert and impudent, 
humble and fawning, in his defence. But at 
the end of all supposing, we come upon some 
nuggets of fact. For first, he was put to the 
question by water. He who had tossed off so 
many cups of white Baigneux or red Beaune, 
now drank water through linen folds, until his 
bowels were flooded and his heart stood still. 
After so much raising of the elbow, so much 
outcry of fictitious thirst, here at last was 
enough drinking for a lifetime. Truly, of our 
pleasant vices, the gods make whips to scourge 
us. And secondly he was condemned to be 






FRANCOIS VILLON 



5i7 



hanged. A man may have been expecting a 
catastrophe for years, and yet find himself un- 
prepared when it arrives. Certainly, Villon 
found, in this legitimate issue of his career, 
a very staggering and grave consideration. 
Every beast, as he says, clings bitterly to a whole 
skin. If everything is lost, and even honour, 
life still remains; nay, and it becomes, like the 
ewe lamb in Nathan's parable, as dear as all 
the rest. "Do you fancy," he asks, in a lively 
ballad, "that I had not enough philosophy un- 
der my hood to cry out : ' I appeal ' ? If I had 
made any bones about the matter, I should have 
been planted upright in the fields, by the St. 
Denis Road" — Montfaucon being on the way 
to St. Denis. An appeal to Parliament, as we 
saw in the case of Colin de Cayeux, did not 
necessarily lead to an acquittal or a commuta- 
tion; and while the matter was pending, our 
poet had ample opportunity to reflect on his 
position. Hanging is a sharp argument, and 
to swing with many others on the gibbet adds 
a horrible corollary for the imagination. With 
the aspect of Montfaucon he was well acquainted ; 
indeed, as the neighbourhood appears to have 
been sacred to junketing and nocturnal picnics 
of wild young men and women, he had proba- 
bly studied it under all varieties of hour and 
weather. And now, as he lay in prison waiting 
the mortal push, these different aspects crowded 
back on his imagination with a new and startling 
significance; and he wrote a ballad, by way of 
epitaph for himself and his companions, which 
remains unique in the annals of mankind. It is, 
in the highest sense, a piece of his biography : — 

" La pluye nous a debuez et lavez, 
Et le soleil desscchez et noirciz; 
Pies, corbeaulx, nous ont les yeux cavez, 
Et arrachcz la barbe et les sourcilz. 
Jamais, nul temps, nous ne sommes rassis; 
Puis ca, puis la., comme le vent varie, 
A son plaisir sans cesser nous charie, 
Plus becquetez d'oiseaulx que dez a couldre. 
Ne soyez done de nostre confrairie, 
Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre." 

Here is some genuine thieves' literature 
after so much that was spurious; sharp as an 
etching, written with a shuddering soul. There 
is an intensity of consideration in the piece that 
shows it to be the transcript of familiar thoughts. 
It is the quintessence of many a doleful night- 
mare on the straw, when he felt himself swing 
helpless in the wind, and saw the birds turn 
about him, screaming and menacing his eyes. 

And, after all, the Parliament changed his 



sentence into one of banishment; and to 
Roussillon, in Dauphiny, our poet must carry 
his woes without delay. Travellers between 
Lyons and Marseilles may remember a station 
on the line, some way below Vienne, where the 
Rhone fleets seaward between vine-clad hills. 
This was Villon's Siberia. It would be a little 
warm in summer perhaps, and a little cold in 
winter in that draughty valley between two 
great mountain fields; but what with the hills, 
and the racing river, and the fiery Rhone 
wines, he was little to be pitied on the conditions 
of his exile. Villon, in a remarkably bad ballad, 
written in a breath, heartily thanked and ful- 
somely belauded the Parliament; the envoi, 
like the proverbial postscript of a lady's letter, 
containing the pith of his performance in a 
request for three days' delay to settle his affairs 
and bid his friends farewell. He was probably 
not followed out of Paris, like Antoine Fradin, 
the popular preacher, another exile of a few 
years later, by weeping multitudes; but I dare 
say one or two rogues of his acquaintance would 
keep him company for a mile or so on the south 
road, and drink a bottle with him before they 
turned. For banished people, in those days, 
seem to have set out on their own responsibility, 
in their own guard, and at their own expense. 
It was no joke to make one's way from Paris to 
Roussillon alone and penniless in the fifteenth 
century. Villon says he left a rag of his tails 
on every bush. Indeed, he must have had 
many a weary tramp, many a slender meal, 
and many a to-do wkh blustering captains of 
the Ordonnance. But with one of his light fin- 
gers, we may fancy that he took as good as he 
gave; for every rag of his tail, he would manage 
to indemnify himself upon the population in the 
shape of food, or wine, or ringing money; and 
his route would be traceable across France 
and Burgundy by housewives and inn-keepers 
lamenting over petty thefts, like the track of a 
single human locust. A strange figure he must 
have cut in the eyes of the good country people: 
this ragged, blackguard city poet, with a smack 
of the Paris student, and a smack of the Paris 
street arab, posting along the highways, in 
rain or sun, among the green fields and vine- 
yards. For himself, he had no taste for rural 
loveliness; green fields and vineyards would 
be mighty indifferent to Master Francis; but 
he would often have his tongue in his cheek at 
the simplicity of rustic dupes, and often, at 
city gates, he might stop to contemplate the 
gibbet with its swinging bodies, and hug him- 
self on his escape. 



5i8 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



How long he stayed at Roussillon, how far he 
became the protege of the Bourbons, to whom 
that town belonged, or when it was that he 
took part, under the auspices of Charles of 
Orleans, in a rhyming tournament to be referred 
to once again in the pages of the present volume, 
are matters that still remain in darkness, 
in spite of M. Longnon's diligent rummaging 
among archives. When we next find him, in 
summer 1461, alas! he is once more in 
durance: this time at Meun-sur-Loire, in the 
prisons of Thibault d'Aussigny, Bishop of 
Orleans. He had been lowered in a basket 
into a noisome pit, where he lay, all summer, 
gnawing hard crusts and railing upon fate. 
His teeth, he says, were like the teeth of a 
rake: a touch of haggard portraiture all the 
more real for being excessive and burlesque, 
and all the more proper to the man for being a 
caricature of his own misery. His eyes were 
"bandaged with thick walls." It might blow 
hurricanes overhead; the lightning might leap 
in high heaven ; but no word of all this reached 
him in his noisome pit. "II n'entre, ou gist, 
n'escler ni tourbillon." Above all, he was 
fevered with envy and anger at the freedom 
of others; and his heart flowed over into 
curses as he thought of Thibault d'Aussigny, 
walking the streets in God's sunlight, and bless- 
ing people with extended fingers. So much we 
find sharply lined in his own poems. Why he 
was cast again into prison — how he had again 
managed to shave the gallows — this we know 
not, nor, from the destruction of authorities, 
are we ever likely to learn. But on October 
2d, 1461, or some day immediately preceding, 
the new King, Louis Eleventh, made his joyous 
entry into Meun. Now it was a part of the 
formality on such occasions for the new King 
to liberate certain prisoners; and so the basket 
was let down into Villon's pit, and hastily did 
Master Francis scramble in, and was most 
joyfully hauled up, and shot out, blinking and 
tottering, but once more a free man, into the 
blessed sun and wind. Now or never is the 
time for verses ! Such a happy revolution 
would turn the head of a stocking-weaver, 
and set him jingling rhymes. And so — 
after a voyage to Paris, where he finds Mon- 
tigny and De Cayeux clattering their bones 
upon the gibbet, and his three pupils royster- 
ing in Paris streets, "with their thumbs 
under their girdles," — down sits Master Fran- 
cis to write his Large Testament, and per- 
petuate his name in a sort of glorious 
ignominy. 



The Large Testament 

Of this capital achievement and, with it, 
of Villon's style in general, it is here the place 
to speak. The Large Testament is a hurly- 
burly of cynical and sentimental reflections 
about life, jesting legacies to friends and en- 
emies, and, interspersed among these many 
admirable ballades, both serious and absurd. 
With so free a design, no thought that occurred 
to him would need to be dismissed without 
expression; and he could draw at full length 
the portrait of his own bedevilled soul, and of 
the bleak and blackguardly world which was 
the theatre of his exploits and sufferings. If the 
reader can conceive something between the 
slap-dash inconsequence of Byron's Don Juan 
and the racy humorous gravity and brief noble 
touches that distinguish the vernacular poems 
of Burns, he will have formed some idea of 
Villon's style. To the latter writer — except 
in the ballades, which are quite his own, and 
can be paralleled from no other language 
known to me — he bears a particular resem- 
blance. In common with Burns he has a certain 
rugged compression, a brutal vivacity of epithet, 
a homely vigour, a delight in local personalities, 
and an interest in many sides of life, that are 
often despised and passed over by more effete 
and cultured poets. Both also, in their strong, 
easy, colloquial way, tend to become difficult 
and obscure; the obscurity in the case of 
Villon passing at times into the absolute dark- 
ness of cant language. They are perhaps the 
only two great masters of expression -who keep 
sending their readers to a glossary. 

"Shall we not dare to say of a thief," asks 
Montaigne, "that he has a handsome leg"? 
It is a far more serious claim that we have to 
put forward in behalf of Villon. Beside that 
of his contemporaries, his writing, so full of 
colour, so eloquent, so picturesque, stands out 
in an almost miraculous isolation. If only one 
or two of the chroniclers could have taken a 
leaf out of his book, history would have been a 
pastime, and the fifteenth century as present 
to our minds as the age of Charles Second. 
This gallows-bird was the one great writer of 
his age and country, and initiated modern 
literature for France. Boileau, long ago, 
in the period of perukes and snuff-boxes, rec- 
ognised him as the first articulate poet in the 
language; and if we measure him, not by pri- 
ority of merit, but living duration of influence, 
not on a comparison with obscure forerunners, 
but with great and famous successors, we shall 



FRANCOIS VILLON 



519 



install this ragged and disreputable figure in a 
far higher niche in glory's temple than was ever 
dreamed of by the critic. It is, in itself, a 
memorable fact that, before 1542, in the very 
dawn of printing, and while modern France was 
in the making, the works of Villon ran through 
seven different editions. Out of him flows much 
of Rabelais; and through Rabelais, directly and 
indirectly, a deep, permanent, and growing in- 
spiration. Not only his style, but his callous 
pertinent way of looking upon the sordid and 
ugly sides of life, becomes every day a more 
specific feature in the literature of France. 
And only the other year, a work of some power 
appeared in Paris, and appeared with infinite 
scandal, which owed its whole inner significance 
and much of its outward form to the study of 
our rhyming thief. 

The world to which he introduces us is, 
as before said, blackguardly and bleak. Paris 
swarms before us, full of famine, shame, and 
death; monks and the servants of great lords 
hold high wassail upon cakes and pastry; the 
poor man licks his lips before the baker's win- 
dow ; people with patched eyes sprawl all night 
under the stall; chuckling Tabary transcribes 
an improper romance ; bare-bosomed lasses and 
ruffling students swagger in the streets; the 
drunkard goes stumbling homeward ; the grave- 
yard is full of bones; and away on Mont- 
faucon, Colin de Cayeux and Montigny hang 
draggled in the rain. Is there nothing better 
to be seen than sordid misery and worthless 
joys? Only where the poor old mother of the 
poet kneels in church below painted windows, 
and makes tremulous supplication to the 
Mother of God. 

In our mixed world, full of green fields and 
happy lovers, where not long before, Joan of 
Arc had led one of the highest and noblest lives 
in the whole story of mankind, this was all 
worth chronicling that our poet could perceive. 
His eyes were indeed sealed with his own 
filth. He dwelt all his life in a pit more noi- 
some than the dungeon at Meun. In the moral 
world, also, there are large phenomena not 
recognisable out of holes and corners. Loud 
winds blow, speeding home deep-laden ships 
and sweeping rubbish from the earth; the 
lightning leaps and cleans the face of heaven; 
high purposes and brave passions shake and* 
sublimate men's spirits; and meanwhile, in the 
narrow dungeon of his soul, Villon is mumbling 
crusts and picking vermin. 

Along with this deadly gloom of outlook, we 
must take another characteristic of his work: 



its unrivalled insincerity. I can give no better 
similitude of this quality than I have given 
already: that he comes up with a whine, and 
runs away with a whoop and his finger to his 
nose. His pathos is that of a professional 
mendicant who should happen to be a man of 
genius; his levity that of a bitter street arab, 
full of bread. On a first reading, the pathetic 
passages preoccupy the reader, and he is cheated 
out of an alms in the shape of sympathy. 
But when the thing is studied the illusion fades 
away: in the transitions, above all, we can de- 
tect the evil, ironical temper of the man; and 
instead of a flighty work, where many crude 
but genuine feelings tumble together for the 
mastery as in the lists of tournament, we are 
tempted to think of the Large Testament as 
of one long-drawn epical grimace, pulled by 
a merry-andrew, who has found a certain 
despicable eminence over human respect and 
human affections by perching himself astride 
upon the gallows. Between these two views, 
at best, all temperate judgments will be found 
to fall; and rather, as I imagine, toward the 
last. 

There were two things on which he felt with 
perfect and, in one case, even threatening 
sincerity. 

The first of these was an undisguised envy 
of those richer than himself. He was forever 
drawing a parallel, already exemplified from 
his own words, between the happy life of the 
well-to-do and the miseries of the poor. Burns, 
too proud and honest not to work, continued 
through all reverses to sing of poverty with 
a light, defiant note. Beranger waited till he 
was himself beyond the reach of want, before 
writing the Old Vagabond or Jacques. Samuel 
Johnson, although he was very sorry to be 
poor, "was a great arguer for the advantages of 
poverty" in his ill days. Thus it is that brave 
men carry their crosses, and smile with the fox 
burrowing in their vitals. But Villon, who had 
not the courage to be poor with honesty, now 
whiningly implores our sympathy, now shows 
his teeth upon the dung-heap with an ugly 
snarl. He envies bitterly, envies passionately. 
Poverty, he protests, drives men to steal, as 
hunger makes the wolf sally from the forest. 
The poor, he goes on, will always have a carp- 
ing word to say, or, if that outlet be denied, 
nourish rebellious thoughts. It is a calumny 
on the noble army of the poor. Thousands in 
a small way of life, ay, and even in the smallest, 
go through life with tenfold as much honour and 
dignity and peace of mind, as the rich gluttons 



520 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



whose dainties and state-beds awakened Villon's 
covetous temper. And every morning's sun 
sees thousands who pass whistling to their toil. 
But Villon was the "mauvais pauvre": defined 
by Victor Hugo, and, in its English expression, 
so admirably stereotyped by Dickens. He was 
the first wicked sans-culotte. He is the man of 
genius with the mole-skin cap. He is mighty 
pathetic and beseeching here in the street, but I 
would not go down a dark road with him for a 
large consideration. 

The second of the points on which he was 
genuine and emphatic was common to the 
middle ages; a deep and somewhat snivelling 
conviction of the transitory nature of this life 
and the pity and horror of death. Old age 
and the grave, with some dark and yet half- 
sceptical terror of an after-world — these 
were ideas that clung about his bones like a 
disease. An old ape, as he says, may play all 
the tricks in its repertory, and none of them 
will tickle an audience into good humour. 
"Tousjours vieil synge est desplaisant." It is 
not the old jester who receives most recognition 
at a tavern party, but the young fellow, fresh 
and handsome, who knows the new slang, and 
carries off his vice with a certain air. Of this, 
as a tavern jester himself, he would be pointedly 
conscious. As for the women with whom he 
was best acquainted, his reflections on their old 
age, in all their harrowing pathos, shall remain 
in the original for me. Horace has disgraced 
himself to something the same tune; but what 
Horace throws out with an ill-favoured laugh, 
Villon dwells on with an almost maudlin whim- 
per. 

It is in death that he finds his truest inspira- 
tion; in the swift and sorrowful change that 
overtakes beauty; in the strange revolution by 
which great fortunes and renowns are dimin- 
ished to a handful of churchyard dust; and in 
the utter passing away of what was once lovable 
and mighty. It is in this that the mixed texture 
of his thought enables him to reach such poig- 
nant and terrible effects, and to enhance pity 
with ridicule, like a man cutting capers to a 
funeral march. It is in this, also, that he rises 
out of himself into the higher spheres of art. 



So, in the ballade by which he is best known, he 
rings the changes on names that once stood for 
beautiful and queenly women, and are now no 
more than letters and a legend. "Where are 
the snows of yester year?" runs the burden. 
And so, in another not so famous, he passes 
in review the different degrees of bygone men, 
from the holy Apostles and the golden Emperor 
of the East, down to the heralds, pursuivants, 
and trumpeters, who also bore their part in the 
world's pageantries and ate greedily at great 
folks' tables: all this to the refrain of "So much 
carry the winds away!" Probably, there was 
some melancholy in his mind for a yet lower 
grade, and Montigny and Colin de Cayeux 
clattering their bones on Paris gibbet. Alas, 
and with so pitiful an experience of life, Villon 
can offer us nothing but terror and lamentation 
about death ! No one has ever more skilfully 
communicated his own disenchantment; no 
one ever blown a more ear-piercing note of sad- 
ness. This unrepentant thief can attain neither 
to Christian confidence, nor to the spirit of the 
bright Greek saying, that whom the gods love 
die early. It is a poor heart, and a poorer 
age, that cannot accept the conditions of life 
with some heroic readiness. 

The date of the Large Testament is the last 
date in the poet's biography. After having 
achieved that admirable and despicable per- 
formance, he disappears into the night from 
whence he came. How or when he died, 
whether decently in bed or trussed up to a 
gallows, remains a riddle for foolhardy com- 
mentators. It appears his health had suffered 
in the pit at Meun ; he was thirty yearc of age 
and quite bald; with the notch in his under lip 
where Sermaise had struck him with the sword, 
and what wrinkles the reader may imagine. 
In default of portraits, this is all I have been able 
to piece together, and perhaps even the bald- 
ness should be taken as a figure of his destitu- 
tion. A sinister dog, in all likelihood, but with 
a look in his eye, and the loose flexile mouth 
that goes with wit and an overweening sensual 
temperament. Certainly the sorriest figure on 
the rolls of fame. 



APPENDIX 



From THE MABINOGION 

TRANSLATED FROM THE WELSH BY LADY 
CHARLOTTE GUEST (SCHREIBER) 

(1812-1895) 

PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 

Earl Evrawc owned the Earldom of the 
North. And he had seven sons. And Evrawc 
maintained himself not so much by his own 
possessions as by attending tournaments, and 
wars, and combats. And, as it often befalls 
those who join in encounters and wars, he was 
slain, and six of his sons likewise. Now the 
name of his seventh son was Peredur, and he 
was the youngest of them. And he was not of 
an age to go to wars and encounters, otherwise 
he might have been slain as well as his father 
and brothers. His mother was a scheming 
and thoughtful woman, and she was very 
solicitous concerning this her only son and his 
possessions. So she took counsel with herself 
to leave the inhabited country, and to flee to the 
deserts and unfrequented wildernesses. And 
she permitted none to bear her company thither 
but women and boys, and spiritless men, who 
were both unaccustomed and unequal to war 
and fighting. And none dared to bring either 
horses or arms where her son was, lest he should 
set his mind upon them. And the youth went 
daily to divert himself in the forest, by flinging 
sticks and staves. And one day he saw his 
mother's flock of goats, and near the goats 
two hinds were standing. And he marvelled 
greatly that these two should be without horns, 
while the others had them. And he thought 
they had long run wild, and on that account 
they had lost their horns. And by activity and 
swiftness of foot, he drove the hinds and the 
goats together into the house which there was 
for the goats at the extremity of the forest. 
Then Peredur returned to his mother. "Ah, 
mother," said he, "a marvellous thing have I 
seen in the wood; two of thy goats have run 
wild, and lost their horns, through their having 
been so long missing in the wood. And no 



man had ever more trouble than I had to drive 
them in." Then they all arose and went to 
see. And when they beheld the hinds they 
were greatly astonished. 

And one day they saw three knights com- 
ing along the horse-road on the borders of the 
forest. And the three knights were Gwalchmai 
the son of Gwyar, and Geneir Gwystyl, and 
Owain the son of Urien. And Owain kept 
on the track of the knight who had divided the 
apples in Arthur's Court, whom they were in 
pursuit of. "Mother," said Peredur, "what 
are those yonder?" "They are angels, my 
son," said she. "By my faith," said Peredur, 
"I will go and become an angel with them." 
And Peredur went to the road, and met them. 
"Tell me, good soul," said Owain, "sawest thou 
a knight pass this way, either to-day or yester- 
day?" "I know not," answered he, "what a 
knight is." "Such an one as I am," said 
Owain. "If thou wilt tell me what I ask thee, 
I will tell thee that which thou askest me." 
"Gladly will I do so," replied Owain. "What 
is this?" demanded Peredur, concerning the 
saddle. "It is a saddle," said Owain. Then 
he asked about all the accoutrements which he 
saw upon the men, and the horses, and the 
arms, and what they were for, and how they 
were used. And Owain showed him all these 
things fully, and told him what use was made 
of them. "Go forward," said Peredur, " for I 
saw such an one as thou inquirest for, and I 
will follow thee." 

Then Peredur returned to his mother and 
her company, and he said to her, "Mother, 
those were not angels, but honourable knights." 
Then his mother swooned away. And Peredur 
went to the place where they kept the horses 
that carried firewood, and that brought meat 
and drink from the inhabited country to the 
desert. And he took a bony piebald horse, 
which seemed to him the strongest of them 
And he pressed a pack into the form of a saddle, 
and with twisted twigs he imitated the trap- 
pings which he had seen upon the horses. 
And when Peredur came again to his mother, 

5 21 



522 



THE MABINOGION 



the Countess had recovered from her swoon. 
"My son," said she, "desirest thou to ride 
forth?" "Yes, with thy leave," said he. 
"Wait, then, that I may counsel thee before 
thou goest." "Willingly," he answered; 
"speak quickly." "Go forward, then," she 
said, "to the Court of Arthur, where there are 
the best, and the boldest, and the most bountiful 
of men. And wherever thou seest a church, 
repeat there thy Paternoster unto it. And if thou 
see meat and drink, and have need of them, 
and none have the kindness or the courtesy 
to give them to thee, take them thyself. If 
thou hear an outcry, proceed towards it, espe- 
cially if it be the outcry of a woman. If thou 
see a fair jewel, possess thyself of it, and give 
it to another, for thus thou shalt obtain praise. 
If thou see a fair woman, pay thy court to her, 
whether she will or no; for thus thou wilt 
render thyself a better and more esteemed 
man than thou wast before." 

After this discourse, Peredur mounted the 
horse, and taking a handful of sharp-pointed 
forks in his hand, he rode forth. And he 
journeyed two days and two nights in the woody 
wildernesses, and in desert places, without 
food and without drink. And then he came to 
a vast wild wood, and far within the wood he 
saw a fair even glade, and in the glade he saw 
a tent, and the tent seeming to him to be a 
church, he repeated his Paternoster to it. And 
he went towards it, and the door of the tent 
was open. And a golden chair was near the 
door. And on the chair sat a lovely auburn- 
haired maiden, with a golden frontlet on her 
forehead, and sparkling stones in the frontlet, 
and with a large gold ring on her hand. And 
Peredur dismounted, and entered the tent. 
And the maiden was glad at his coming, and 
bade him welcome. At the entrance of the 
tent he saw food, and two flasks full of wine, 
and two loaves of fine wheaten flour, and collops 
of the flesh of the wild boar. " My mother 
told me," said Peredur, "wheresoever I saw 
meat and drink, to take it." "Take the meat 
and welcome, chieftain," said she. So Pere- 
dur took half of the meat and of the liquor 
himself, and left the rest to the maiden. And 
when Peredur had finished eating, he bent upon 
his knee before the maiden. "My mother," 
said he, "told me, wheresoever I saw a fair 
jewel, to take it." "Do so, my soul," said she. 
So Peredur took the ring. And he mounted 
his horse, and proceeded on his journey. 

After this, behold the knight came, to whom 
the tent belonged ; and he was the Lord of the 



Glade. And he saw the track of the horse, 
and he said to the maiden, "Tell me who has 
been here since I departed." "A man," said 
she, "of wonderful demeanour." And she 
described to him what Peredur's appearance 
and conduct had been. "Tell me," said he, 
"did he offer thee any wrong?" "No," 
answered the maiden, "by my faith, he harmed 
me not." "By my faith, I do not believe thee; 
and until I can meet with him, and revenge the 
insult he has done me, and wreak my vengeance 
upon him, thou shalt not remain two nights in 
the same house." And the knight arose, and 
set forth to seek Peredur. 

Meanwhile Peredur journeyed on towards 
Arthur's Court. And before he reached it, 
another knight had been there, who gave a 
ring of thick gold at the door of the gate for 
holding his horse, and went into the Hall where 
Arthur and his household, and Gwenhwyvar 
and her maidens, were assembled. And the 
page of the chamber was serving Gwenhwyvar 
with a golden goblet. Then the knight dashed 
the liquor that was therein upon her face, and 
upon her stomacher, and gave her a violent 
blow on the face, and said, "If any have the 
boldness to dispute this goblet with me, and to 
revenge the insult to Gwenhwyvar, let him 
follow me to the meadow, and there I will 
await him." So the knight took his horse, and 
rode to the meadow. And all the household 
hung down their heads, lest any of them should 
be requested to go and avenge the insult to 
Gwenhwyvar. For it seemed to them, that no 
one would have ventured on so daring an out- 
rage, unless he possessed such powers, through 
magic or charms, that none could be able to take 
vengeance upon him. Then, behold, Peredur 
entered the Hall, upon the bony piebald horse, 
with the uncouth trappings upon it; and in 
this way he traversed the whole length of the 
Hall. In the centre of the Hall stood Kai. 
"Tell me, tall man," said Peredur, "is that 
Arthur yonder?" "What wouldest thou with 
Arthur?" asked Kai. "My mother told me 
to go to Arthur, and receive the honour of 
knighthood." "By my faith," said he, "thou 
art all too meanly equipped with horse and with 
arms." Thereupon he was perceived by all 
the household, and they threw sticks at him. 
Then, behold, a dwarf came forward. He had 
already been a year at Arthur's Court, both he 
and a female dwarf. They had craved har- 
bourage of Arthur, and had obtained it; and 
during the whole year, neither of them had 
spoken a single word to any one. When the 



PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



523 



dwarf beheld Peredur, "Haha!" said he, "the 
welcome of Heaven be unto thee, goodly 
Peredur, son of Evrawc, the chief of warriors, 
and flower of knighthood." "Truly," said 
Kai, "thou art ill-taught to remain a year mute 
at Arthur's Court, with choice of society; and 
now, before the face of Arthur and all his 
household, to call out, and declare such a man 
as this the chief of warriors, and the flower of 
knighthood." And he gave him such a box 
on the ear that he fell senseless to the ground. 
Then exclaimed the female dwarf, "Haha! 
goodly Peredur, son of Evrawc; the welcome 
of Heaven be unto thee, flower of knights, 
and light of chivalry." "Of a truth, maiden," 
said Kai, "thou art ill-bred to remain mute 
for a year at the Court of Arthur, and then to 
speak as thou dost of such a man as this." 
And Kai kicked her with his foot, so that she 
fell to the ground senseless. "Tall man," 
said Peredur, "show me which is Arthur." 
"Hold thy peace," said Kai, "and go after the 
knight who went hence to the meadow, and 
take from him the goblet, and overthrow him, 
and possess thyself of his horse and arms, and 
then thou shalt receive the order of knight- 
hood." "I will do so, tall man," said Peredur. 
So he turned his horse's head towards the 
meadow. And when he came there, the knight 
was riding up and down, proud of his strength, 
and valour, and noble mien. "Tell me," 
said the knight, "didst thou see anyone com- 
ing after me from the Court?" "The tall man 
that was there," said he, "desired me to come, 
and overthrow thee, and to take from thee the 
goblet, and thy horse and thy armour for my- 
self." "Silence !" said the knight; "go back 
to the Court, and tell Arthur, from me, either 
to come himself, or to send some other to fight 
with me; and unless he do so quickly, I will 
not wait for him." "By my faith," said Pere- 
dur, "choose thou whether it shall be willingly 
or unwillingly, but I will have the horse, and 
the arms, and the goblet." And upon this the 
knight ran at him furiously, and struck him 
a violent blow with the shaft of his spear, be- 
tween the neck and the shoulder. "Haha! 
lad," said Peredur, "my mother's servants 
were not used to play with me in this wise; 
therefore, thus will I play with thee." And 
thereupon he struck him with a sharp-pointed 
fork, and it hit him in the eye, and came out 
at the back of his neck, so that he instantly 
fell down lifeless. 

"Verily," said Owain the son of Urien to Kai, 
"thou wert ill-advised, when thou didst send 



that madman after the knight. For one of 
two things must befall him. He must either 
be overthrown, or slain. If he is overthrown 
by the knight, he will be counted by him to be 
an honourable person of the Court, and an 
eternal disgrace will it be to Arthur and his 
warriors. And if he is slain, the disgrace will 
be the same, and moreover, his sin will be upon 
him; therefore will I go to see what has be- 
fallen him." So Owain went to the meadow, 
and he found Peredur dragging the man about. 
"What art thou doing thus?" said Owain. 
"This iron coat," said Peredur, "will nevercome 
from off him; not by my efforts, at any rate." 
And Owain unfastened his armour and his 
clothes. "Here, my good soul," said he, "is 
a horse and armour better than thine. Take 
them joyfully, and come with me to Arthur, to 
receive the order of knighthood, for thou dost 
merit it." "May I never show my face again 
if I go," said Peredur; "but take thou the 
goblet to Gwenhwyvar, and tell Arthur, that 
wherever I am, I will be his vassal, and will do 
him what profit and service I am able. And 
say that I will not come to his Court, until I 
have encountered the tall man that is there, 
to revenge the injury he did to the dwarf and 
dwarfess." And Owain went back to the 
Court, and related all these things to Arthur 
and Gwenhwyvar, and to all the household. 

And Peredur rode forward. And as he pro- 
ceeded, behold a knight met him. "Whence 
comest thou?" said the knight. "I come from 
Arthur's Court," said Peredur. "Art thou one 
of his men?" asked he. "Yes, by my faith," 
he answered. "A good service, truly, is that 
of Arthur." "Wherefore sayest thou so?" 
said Peredur. "I will tell thee," said he; 
"I have always been Arthur's enemy, and all 
such of his men as I have ever encountered I 
have slain." And without further parlance 
they fought, and it was not long before Peredur 
brought him to the ground, over his horse's 
crupper. Then the knight besought his mercy. 
"Mercy thou shalt have," said Peredur, "if 
thou wilt make oath to me, that thou wilt go 
to Arthur's Court, and tell him that it was I 
that overthrew thee, for the honour of his 
service; and say, that I will never come to the 
Court until I have avenged the insult offered 
to the dwarf and dwarfess." The knight 
pledged him his faith of this, and proceeded to 
the Court of Arthur, and said as he had prom- 
ised, and conveyed the threat to Kai. 

And Peredur rode forward. And within that 
week he encountered sixteen knights, and over- 



5 2 4 



THE MABINOGION 



threw them all shamefully. And they all went 
to Arthur's Court, taking with them the same 
message which the first knight had conveyed 
from Peredur, and the same threat which he 
had sent to Kai. And thereupon Kai was 
reproved by Arthur; and Kai was greatly 
grieved thereat. 

And Peredur rode forward. And he came to 
a vast and desert wood, on the confines of which 
was a lake. And on the other side was a fair 
castle. And on the border of the lake he saw 
a venerable, hoary-headed man, sitting upon a 
velvet cushion, and having a garment of velvet 
upon him. And his attendants were fishing 
in the lake. When the hoary-headed man 
beheld Peredur approaching, he arose and 
went towards the castle. And the old man was 
lame. Peredur rode to the palace, and the door 
was open, and he entered the hall. And there 
was the hoary-headed man sitting on a cushion, 
and a large blazing fire burning before him. 
And the household and the company arose to 
meet Peredur, and disarrayed him. And the 
man asked the youth to sit on the cushion ; 
and they sat down, and conversed together. 
When it was time, the tables were laid, and they 
went to meat. And when they had finished 
their meal, the man inquired of Peredur if 
he knew well how to fight with the sword. 
"I know not," said Peredur, "but were I to 
be taught, doubtless I should." "Whoever 
can play well with the cudgel and shield, will 
also be able to fight with a sword." And the 
man had two sons; the one had yellow hair, 
and the other auburn. "Arise, youths," 
said he, "and play with the cudgel and the 
shield." And so did they. "Tell me, my 
soul," said the man, "which of the youths 
thinkest thou plays best." "I think," said 
Peredur, "that the yellow -haired youth could 
draw blood from the other, if he chose." 
"Arise thou, my life, and take the cudgel and 
the shield from the hand of the youth with 
the auburn hair, and draw blood from the 
yellow-haired youth if thou canst." So Pere- 
dur arose, and went to play with the yellow- 
haired youth; and he lifted up his arm, and 
struck him such a mighty blow, that his brow 
fell over his eye, and the blood flowed forth. 
"Ah, my life," said the man, "come now, and 
sit down, for thou wilt become the best fighter 
with the sword of any in this island; and I am 
thy uncle, thy mother's brother. And with me 
shalt thou remain a space, in order to learn the 
manners and customs of different countries, and 
courtesy, and gentleness, and noble bearing. 



Leave, then, the habits and the discourse of 
thy mother, and I will be thy teacher; and I 
will raise thee to the rank of knight from this 
time forward. And thus do thou. If thou 
seest aught to cause thee wonder, ask not the 
meaning of it; if no one has the courtesy to 
inform thee, the reproach will not fall upon 
thee, but upon me that am thy teacher." And 
they had abundance of honour and service. 
And when it was time they went to sleep. 
At the break of day, Peredur arose, and took 
his horse, and with his uncle's permission he 
rode forth. And he came to a vast desert 
wood, and at the further end of the wood was a 
meadow, and on the other side of the meadow 
he saw a large castle. And thitherward Pere- 
dur bent his way, and he found the gate open, 
and he proceeded to the hall. And he beheld 
a stately hoary-headed man sitting on one side 
of the hall, and many pages around him, 
who arose to receive and to honour Peredur. 
And they placed him by the side of the owner 
of the palace. Then they discoursed together; 
and when it was time to eat, they caused Pere- 
dur to sit beside the nobleman during the repast. 
And when they had eaten and drunk as much 
as they desired, the nobleman asked Peredur 
whether he could fight with a sword? "Were 
I to receive instruction," said Peredur, "I 
think I could." Now, there was on the"1ioor 
of the hall a huge staple, as large as a warrior 
could grasp. "Take yonder sword," said the 
man to Peredur, "and strike the iron staple." 
So Peredur arose and struck the staple, so that 
he cut it in two ; and the sword broke into two 
parts also. "Place the two parts together, and 
reunite them," and Peredur placed them to- 
gether, and they became entire as they were 
before. And a second time he struck upon the 
staple, so that both it and the sword broke in 
two, and as before they reunited. And the 
third time he gave a like blow, and placed the 
broken parts together, and neither the staple 
nor the sword would unite as before. "Youth," 
said the nobleman, "come now, and sit down, 
and my blessing be upon thee. Thou tightest 
best with the sword of any man in the kingdom. 
Thou hast arrived at two-thirds of thy strength, 
and the other third thou hast not yet obtained; 
and when thou attainest to thy full power, none 
will be able to contend with thee. I am thy 
uncle, thy mother's brother, and I am brother 
to the man in whose house thou wast last night." 
Then Peredur and his uncle discoursed to- 
gether, and he beheld two youths enter the hall, 
and proceed up to the chamber, bearing a spear 



PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



525 



of mighty size, with three streams of blood 
flowing from the point to the ground. And 
when all the company saw this, they began 
wailing and lamenting. But for all that, the 
man did not break off his discourse with 
Peredur. And as he did not tell Peredur the 
meaning of what he saw, he forbore to ask 
him concerning it. And when the clamour 
had a little subsided, behold two maidens 
entered, with a large salver between them, in 
which was a man's head, surrounded by a pro- 
fusion of blood. And thereupon the company 
of the court made so great an outcry, that it 
was irksome to be in the same hall with them. 
But at length they were silent. And when time 
was that they should sleep, Peredur was brought 
into a fair chamber. 

And the next day, with his uncle's permission, 
he rode forth. And he came to a wood, and 
far within the wood he heard a loud cry, and 
he saw a beautiful woman with auburn hair, 
and a horse with a saddle upon it, standing 
near her, and a corpse by her side. And as 
she strove to place the corpse upon the horse, 
it fell to the ground, and thereupon she made 
a great lamentation. "Tell me, sister," said 
Peredur, "wherefore art thou bewailing?" 
"Oh ! accursed Peredur, little pity has my ill- 
fortune ever met with from thee." 

"Wherefore," said Peredur, "am I ac- 
cursed?" "Because thou wast the cause of 
thy mother's death; for when thou didst ride 
forth against her will, anguish seized upon her 
heart, so that she died; and therefore art thou 
accursed. And the dwarf and the dwarfess 
that thou sawest at Arthur's Court were the 
dwarfs of thy father and mother; and I am thy 
foster-sister, and this was my wedded husband, 
and he was slain by the knight that is in the 
glade in the wood; and do not thou go near 
him, lest thou shouldest be slain by him like- 
wise." "My sister, thou dost reproach me 
wrongfully; through my having so long re- 
mained amongst you, I shall scarcely vanquish 
him; and had I continued longer, it would, 
indeed, be difficult for me to succeed. Cease, 
therefore, thy lamenting, for it is of no avail, 
and I will bury the body, and then I will go 
in quest of the knight, and see if I can do ven- 
geance upon him." And when he had buried 
the body, they went to the place where the 
knight was, and found him riding proudly 
along the glade; and he inquired of Peredur 
whence he came. "I come from Arthur's 
Court." "And art thou one of Arthur's men?" 
"Yes, by my faith." "A profitable alliance, 



truly, is that of Arthur." And without further 
parlance, they encountered one another, and 
immediately Peredur overthrew the knight, 
and he besought mercy of Peredur. "Mercy 
shalt thou have," said he, "upon these terms, 
that thou take this woman in marriage, and 
do her all the honour and reverence in thy 
power, seeing thou hast, without cause, slain 
her wedded husband; and that thou go to 
Arthur's Court, and show him that it was I 
that overthrew thee, to do him honour and 
service; and that thou tell him that I will 
never come to his Court again until I have met 
with the tall man that is there, to take ven- 
geance upon him for his insult to the dwarf 
and dwarfess." And he took the knight's 
assurance, that he would perform all this. 
Then the knight provided the lady with a horse 
and garments that were suitable for her, and 
took her with him to Arthur's Court. And he 
told Arthur all that had occurred, and gave 
the defiance to Kai. And Arthur and all his 
household reproved Kai, for having driven such 
a youth as Peredur from his Court. 

Said Owain the son of Urien, "This youth 
will never come into the Court until Kai has 
gone forth from it." "By my faith," said 
Arthur, "I will search all the deserts in the 
Island of Britain, until I find Peredur, and then 
let him and his adversary do their utmost to 
each other." 

Then Peredur rode forward. And he came 
to a desert wood, where he saw not the track 
either of men or animals, and where there was 
nothing but bushes and weeds. And at the 
upper end of the wood he saw a vast castle, 
wherein were many strong towers; and when 
he came near the gate, he found the weeds taller 
than he had seen them elsewhere. And he 
struck the gate with the shaft of his lance, and 
thereupon behold a lean, auburn-haired youth 
came to an opening in the battlements. 
"Choose thou, chieftain," said he, "whether 
shall I open the gate unto thee, or shall I an- 
nounce unto those that are chief, that thou 
art at the gateway?" "Say that I am here," 
said Peredur, "and if it is desired that I should 
enter, I will go in." And the youth came back, 
and opened the gate for Peredur. And when 
he went into the hall, he beheld eighteen 
youths, lean and red-headed, of the same height, 
and of the same aspect, and of the same dress, 
and of the same age as the one who had opened 
the gate for him. And they were well skilled 
in courtesy and in service. And they disar- 
rayed him. Then they sat down to discourse. 



526 



THE MABINOGION 



Thereupon, behold five maidens came from 
the chamber into the hall. And Peredur was 
certain that he had never seen another of so 
fair an aspect as the chief of the maidens. 
And she had an old garment of satin upon her, 
which had once been handsome, but was then 
so tattered, that her skin could be seen through 
it. And whiter was her skin than the bloom 
of crystal, and her hair and her two eyebrows 
were blacker than jet, and on her cheeks were 
two red spots, redder than whatever is reddest. 
And the maiden welcomed Peredur, and put her 
arms about his neck, and made him sit down 
beside her. Not long after this he saw two 
nuns enter, and a flask full of wine was borne 
by one, and six loaves of white bread by the 
other. "Lady," said they, "Heaven is witness, 
that there is not so much of food and liquor 
as this left in yonder Convent this night." 
Then they went to meat, and Peredur observed 
that the maiden wished to give more of the food 
and of the liquor to him than to any of 
the others. "My sister," said Peredur, 
"I will share out the food and the liquor." 
"Not so, my soul," said she. "By my faith 
but I will." So Peredur took the bread, and 
he gave an equal portion of it to each alike, 
as well as a cup full of the liquor. And when 
it was time for them to sleep, a chamber 
was prepared for Peredur, and he went to 
rest. 

"Behold, sister," said the youths to the 
fairest and most exalted of the maidens, "we 
have counsel for thee." "What may it be?" 
she inquired. "Go to the youth that is in the 
upper chamber, and offer to become his wife, 
or the lady of his love, if it seem well to him." 
"That were indeed unfitting," said she. 
"Hitherto I have not been the lady-love of any 
knight, and to make him such an offer before I am 
wooed by him, that, truly, can I not do." "By 
our confession to Heaven, unless thou actest 
thus, we will leave thee here to thy enemies, 
to do as they will with thee." And through 
fear of this, the maiden went forth ; and shed- 
ding tears, she proceeded to the chamber. And 
with the noise of the door opening, Peredur 
awoke; and the maiden was weeping and 
lamenting. "Tell me, my sister," said Pere- 
dur, "wherefore dost thou weep?" "I will 
tell thee, lord," said she. "My father pos- 
sessed these dominions as their chief, and this 
palace was his, and with it he held the best 
earldom in the kingdom; then the son of 
another earl sought me of my father, and I was 
not willing to be given unto him, and my father 



would not give me against my will, either to 
him or any earl in the world. And my father 
had no child except myself. And after my 
father's death, these dominions came into my 
own hands, and then was I less willing to accept 
him than before. So he made war upon me, 
and conquered all my possessions, except this 
one house. And through the valour of the 
men whom thou hast seen, who are my foster- 
brothers, and the strength of the house, it can 
never be taken while food and drink remain. 
And now our provisions are exhausted ; but, as 
thou hast seen, we have been fed by the nuns, 
to whom the country is free. And at length they 
also are without supply of food or liquor. And 
at no later date than to-morrow, the earl will 
come against this place with all his forces; 
and if I fall into his power, my fate will be no 
better than to be given over to the grooms 
of his horses. Therefore, lord, I am come to 
offer to place myself in thy hands, that thou 
mayest succour me, either by taking me hence, 
or by defending me here, whichever may seem 
best unto thee." "Go, my sister," said he, 
"and sleep; nor will I depart from thee until 
I do that which thou requirest, or prove whether 
I can assist thee or not." The maiden went 
again to rest; and the next morning she came 
to Peredur, and saluted him. "Heaven prosper 
thee, my soul, and what tidings dost thou 
bring?" " None other, than that the earl and 
all his forces have alighted at the gate, and I 
never beheld any place so covered with tents, 
and thronged with knights challenging others 
to the combat." "Truly," said Peredur, "let 
my horse be made ready." So his horse was 
accoutred, and he arose and sallied forth to 
the meadow. And there was a knight riding 
proudly along the meadow, having raised the 
signal for battle. And they encountered, and 
Peredur threw the knight over his horse's 
crupper to the ground. And at the close of the 
day, one of the chief knights came to fight with 
him, and he overthrew him also, so that he 
besought his mercy. "Who art thou?" said 
Peredur. "Verily," said he, "I am Master of 
the Household to the earl." "And how much 
of the countess's possessions is there in thy 
power?" "The third part, verily," answered 
he. "Then," said Peredur, "restore to her 
the third of her possessions in full, and all the 
profit thou hast made by them, and bring meat 
and drink for a hundred men, with their horses 
and arms, to her court this night. And thou 
shalt remain her captive, unless she wish to 
take thy life." And this he did forthwith. 



PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



527 



And that night the maiden was right joyful, 
and they fared plenteously. 

And the next day Peredur rode forth to the 
meadow; and that day he vanquished a multi- 
tude of the host. And at the close of the day, 
there came a proud and stately knight, and 
Peredur overthrew him, and he besought his 
mercy. "Who art thou?" said Peredur. "I 
am Steward of the Palace," said he. "And 
how much of the maiden's possessions are un- 
der thy control?" "One-third part," answered 
he. "Verily," said Peredur, "thou shalt fully 
restore to the maiden her possessions, and, 
moreover, thou shalt give her meat and drink 
for two hundred men, and their horses and 
their arms. And for thyself, thou shalt be 
her captive." And immediately it was so 
done. 

And the third day Peredur rode forth to the 
meadow; and he vanquished more that day 
than on either of the preceding. And at the 
close of the day, an earl came to encounter him, 
and he overthrew him, and he besought his 
mercy. "Who art thou?" said Peredur. "I 
am the earl," said he. "I will not conceal 
it from thee." "Verily," said Peredur, "thou 
shalt restore the whole of the maiden's earldom, 
and shalt give her thine own earldom in addi- 
tion thereto, and meat and drink for three 
hundred men, and their horses and arms, and 
thou thyself shalt remain in her power." And 
thus it was fulfilled. And Peredur tarried 
three weeks in the country, causing tribute and 
obedience to be paid to the maiden, and the 
government to be placed in her hands. "With 
thy leave," said Peredur, "I will go hence." 
"Verily, my brother, desirest thou this?" 
"Yes, by my faith; and had it not been for 
love of thee, I should not have been here thus 
long." "My soul," said she, "who art thou?" 
"I am Peredur the son of Evrawc from the 
North; and if ever thou art in trouble or in 
danger, acquaint me therewith, and if I can, I 
will protect thee." 

So Peredur rode forth. And far thence there 
met him a lady, mounted on a horse that was 
lean, and covered with sweat; and she saluted 
the youth. "Whence comest thou, my sister?" 
Then she told him the cause of her journey. 
Now she was the wife of the Lord of the Glade. 
"Behold," said he, "I am the knight through 
whom thou art in trouble, and he shall repent it, 
who has treated thee thus." Thereupon, be- 
hold a knight rode up, and he inquired of 
Peredur, if he had seen a knight such as he 
was seeking. "Hold thy peace," said Peredur, 



" I am he whom thou seekest ; and by my faith, 
thou deservest ill of thy household for thy 
treatment of the maiden, for she is innocent 
concerning me." So they encountered, and 
they were not long in combat ere Peredur over- 
threw the knight, and he besought his mercy. 
"Mercy thou shalt have," said Peredur, "so 
thou wilt return by the way thou earnest, and 
declare that thou holdest the maiden innocent, 
and so that thou wilt acknowledge unto her the 
reverse thou hast sustained at my hands." 
And the knight plighted him his faith thereto. 
Then Peredur rode forward. And above 
him he beheld a castle, and thitherward he 
went. And he struck upon the gate with his 
lance, and then, behold, a comely auburn- 
haired youth opened the gate, and he had the 
stature of a warrior, and the years of a boy. 
And when Peredur came into the hall, 
there was a tall and stately lady sitting in a 
chair, and many handmaidens around her; 
and the lady rejoiced at his coming. And 
when it was time, they went to meat. And 
after their repast was finished, "It were well 
for thee, chieftain," said she, "to go elsewhere 
to sleep." "Wherefore can I not sleep here?" 
said Peredur. "Nine sorceresses are here, 
my soul, of the sorceresses of Gloucester, and 
their father and their mother are with them; 
and unless we can make our escape before 
daybreak, we shall be slain ; and already they 
have conquered and laid waste all the country, 
except this one dwelling." "Behold," said 
Peredur, "I will remain here to-night, and if 
you are in trouble, I will do you what service 
I can; but harm shall you not receive from 
me." So they went to rest. And with the 
break of day, Peredur heard a dreadful outcry. 
And he hastily arose, and went forth in his vest 
and his doublet, with his sword about his neck, 
and he saw a sorceress overtake one of the 
watch, who cried out violently. Peredur at- 
tacked the sorceress, and struck her upon the 
head with his sword, so that he flattened her 
helmet and her headpiece like a dish upon her 
head. "Thy mercy, goodly Peredur, son of 
Evrawc, and the mercy of Heaven." "How 
knowest thou, hag, that I am Peredur?" "By 
destiny, and the foreknowledge that I should 
suffer harm from thee. And thou shalt take 
a horse and armour of me; and with me thou 
shalt go to learn chivalry and the use of thy 
arms." Said Peredur, "Thou shalt have 
mercy, if thou pledge thy faith thou wilt never 
more injure the dominions of the Countess." 
And Peredur took surety of this, and with 



528 



THE MABINOGION 



permission of the Countess, he set forth with the 
sorceress to the palace of the sorceresses. And 
there he remained for three weeks, and then 
he made choice of a horse and arms, and went 
his way. 

And in the evening he entered a valley, and 
at the head of the valley he came to a hermit's 
cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, 
and there he spent the night. And in the morn- 
ing he arose, and when he went forth, behold 
a shower of snow had fallen the night before, 
and a hawk had killed a wild fowl in front of 
the cell. And the noise of the horse scared the 
hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. 
And Peredur stood, and compared the black- 
ness of the raven and the whiteness of the snow, 
and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the 
lady that best he loved, which was blacker than 
jet, and to her skin, which was whiter than the 
snow, and to the two red spots upon her cheeks, 
which were redder than the blood upon the 
snow appeared to be. 

Now Arthur and his household were in search 
of Peredur. " Know ye," said Arthur, "who is 
the knight with the long spear that stands by 
the brook up yonder?" "Lord," said one of 
them, "I will go and learn who he is." So the 
youth came to the place where Peredur was, 
and asked him what he did thus, and who he 
was. And from the intensity with which he 
thought upon the lady whom best he loved, 
he gave him no answer. Then the youth thrust 
at Peredur with his lance, and Peredur turned 
upon him, and struck him over his horse's 
crupper to the ground. And after this, four- 
and-twenty youths came to him, and he did 
not answer one more than another, but gave 
the same reception to all, bringing them with 
one single thrust to the ground. And then came 
Kai, and spoke to Peredur rudely and angrily; 
and Peredur took him with his lance under the 
jaw, and cast him from him with a thrust, so 
that he broke his arm and his shoulder-blade, 
and he rode over him one-and-twenty times. 
And while he lay thus, stunned with the vio- 
lence of the pain that he had suffered, his horse 
returned back at a wild and prancing pace. 
And when the household saw the horse come 
back without his rider, they rode forth in haste 
to the place where the encounter had been. 
And when they first came there, they thought 
that Kai was slain; but they found that if he 
had a skilful physician, he yet might live. 
And Peredur moved not from his meditation, 
on seeing the concourse that was around Kai. 
And Kai was brought to Arthur's tent, and 



Arthur caused skilful physicians to come to 
him. And Arthur was grieved that Kai had 
met with this reverse, for he loved him greatly. 

"Then," said Gwalchmai, "it is not fitting 
that any should disturb an honourable knight 
from his thought unadvisedly; for either he is 
pondering some damage that he has sustained, 
or he is thinking of the lady whom best he loves. 
And through such ill-advised proceeding, per- 
chance this misadventure has befallen him 
who last met with him. And if it seem well to 
thee, lord, I will -go and see if this knight has 
changed from his thought; and if he has, I 
will ask him courteously to come and visit 
thee." Then Kai was wroth, and he spoke 
angry and spiteful words. "Gwalchmai," 
said he, 'T know that thou wilt bring him 
because he is fatigued. Little praise and hon- 
our, nevertheless, wilt thou have from van- 
quishing a weary knight, who is tired with 
fighting. Yet thus hast thou gained the ad- 
vantage over many. And while thy speech and 
thy soft words last, a coat of thin linen were 
armour sufficient for thee, and thou wilt not 
need to break either lance or sword in fighting 
with the knight in the state he is in." Then 
said Gwalchmai to Kai, "Thou mightest use 
more pleasant words, wert thou so minded; 
and it behoves thee not upon me to wreak thy 
wrath and thy displeasure. Methinks I shall 
bring the knight hither with me without break- 
ing either my arm or my shoulder." Then 
said Arthur to Gwalchmai, "Thou speakest 
like a wise and prudent man; go, and take 
enough of armour about thee, and choose thy 
horse." And Gwalchmai accoutred himself, 
and rode forward hastily to the place where 
Peredur was. 

And Peredur was resting on the shaft of his 
spear, pondering the same thought, and Gwalch- 
mai came to him without any signs of hos- 
tility, and said to him, "If I thought that it 
would be as agreeable to thee as it would be to 
me, I would converse with thee. I have also 
a message from Arthur unto thee, to pray thee 
to come and visit him. And two men have 
been before on this errand." "That is true," 
said Peredur, "and uncourteously they came. 
They attacked me, and I was annoyed thereat, 
for it was not pleasing to me to be drawn from 
the thought that I was in, for I was thinking of 
the lady whom best I love, and thus was she 
brought to my mind: — I was looking upon 
the snow, and upon the raven, and upon the 
drops of the blood of the bird that the hawk 
had killed upon the snow. And I bethought 



PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



5 2 9 



me that her whiteness was like that of the snow, 
and that the blackness of her hair and her eye- 
brows like that of the raven, and that the two 
red spots upon her cheek were like the two 
drops of blood." Said Gwalchmai, "This was 
not an ungentle thought, and I should marvel 
if it were pleasant to thee to be drawn from it." 
"Tell me," said Peredur, "is Kai in Arthur's 
Court?" "He is," said he, "and behold he 
is the knight that fought with thee last; and it 
would have been better for him had he not 
come, for his arm and his shoulder-blade were 
broken with the fall which he had from thy 
spear." "Verily," said Peredur, "I am not 
sorry to have thus begun to avenge the in- 
sult to the dwarf and dwarfess." Then 
Gwalchmai marvelled to hear him speak of the 
dwarf and the dwarfess; and he approached 
him, and threw his arms around his neck, and 
asked him what was his name. "Peredur the 
son of Evrawc am I called," said he; "and 
thou, who art thou?" "I am called Gwalch- 
mai," he replied. "I am right glad to meet 
with thee," said Peredur, "for in every country 
where I have been I have heard of thy fame 
for prowess and uprightness, and I solicit thy 
fellowship." "Thou shalt have it, by my 
faith, and grant me thine," said he. "Gladly 
will I do so," answered Peredur. 

So they rode forth together joyfully towards 
the place where Arthur was, and when Kai 
saw them coming, he said," I knew that Gwalch- 
mai needed not to fight the knight. And it 
is no wonder that he should gain fame; more 
can he do by his fair words than I by the 
strength of my arm." And Peredur went with 
Gwalchmai to his tent, and they took off their 
armour. And Peredur put on garments like 
those that Gwalchmai wore, and they went 
together unto Arthur, and saluted him. "Be- 
hold, lord," said Gwalchmai, "him whom thou 
hast sought so long." "Welcome unto thee, 
chieftain," said Arthur. "With me thou shalt 
remain ; and had I known thy valour had been 
such, thou shouldst not have left me as thou 
didst; nevertheless, this was predicted of thee 
by the dwarf and the dwarfess, whom Kai ill- 
treated and whom thou hast avenged." And 
hereupon, behold there came the Queen and 
her handmaidens, and Peredur saluted them. 
And they were rejoiced to see him, and bade him 
welcome. And Arthur did him great honour 
and respect, and they returned towards Caer- 
lleon. 

And the first night Peredur came to Caerlleon 
to Arthur's Court, and as he walked in the city 



after his repast, behold, there met him An- 
gharad Law Eurawc. "By my faith, sister," 
said Peredur, "thou art a beauteous and lovely 
maiden; and, were it pleasing to thee, I could 
love thee above all women." "I pledge my 
faith," said she, "that I do not love thee, nor 
will I ever do so." "I also pledge my faith," 
said Peredur, "that I will never speak a word 
to any Christian again, until thou come to love 
me above all men." 

The next day Peredur went forth by the high 
road, along a mountain-ridge, and he saw a 
valley of a circular form, the confines of which 
were rocky and wooded. And the flat part of 
the valley was in meadows, and there were 
fields betwixt the meadows and the wood. 
And in the bosom of the wood he saw large 
black houses of uncouth workmanship. And 
he dismounted, and led his horse towards the 
wood. And a little way within the wood he 
saw a rocky ledge, along which the road lay. 
And upon the ledge was a lion bound by a chain, 
and sleeping. And beneath the lion he saw 
a deep pit of immense size, full of the bones 
of men and animals. And Peredur drew his 
sword and struck the lion, so that he fell into 
the mouth of the pit and hung there by the 
chain; and with a second blow he struck the 
chain and broke it, and the lion fell into the 
pit; and Peredur led his horse over the rocky 
ledge, until he came into the valley. And in 
the centre of the valley he saw a fair castle, and 
he went towards it. And in the meadow by 
the castle he beheld a huge gray man sitting, 
who was larger than any man he had ever be- 
fore seen. And two young pages were shooting 
the hilts of their daggers, of the bone of the sea- 
horse. And one of the pages had red hair, and 
the other auburn. And they went before him 
to the place where the gray man was, and 
Peredur saluted him. And the gray man said, 
"Disgrace to the beard of my porter." Then 
Peredur understood that the porter was the 
lion. — And the gray man and the pages went 
together into the castle, and Peredur accom- 
panied them; and he found it a fair and noble 
place. And they proceeded to the hall, and 
the tables were already laid, and upon them 
was abundance of food and liquor. And there- 
upon he saw an aged woman and a young wo- 
man come from the chamber; and they were 
the most stately women he had ever seen. 
Then they washed and went to meat, and the 
gray man sat in the upper seat at the head of the 
table, and the aged woman next to him. And 
Peredur and the maiden were placed together, 



53° 



THE MABINOGION 



and the two young pages served them. And 
the maiden gazed sorrowfully upon Peredur, 
and Peredur asked the maiden wherefore she 
was sad. " For thee, my soul ; for, from when 
I first beheld thee, I have loved thee above all 
men. And it pains me to know that so gentle 
a youth as thou should have such a doom 
as awaits thee to-morrow. Sawest thou the 
numerous black houses in the bosom of the 
wood? All these belong to the vassals of the 
gray man yonder, who is my father. And they 
are all giants. And to-morrow they will rise 
up against thee, and will slay thee. And the 
Round Valley is this valley called." "Listen, 
fair maiden, wilt thou contrive that my horse 
and arms be in the same lodging with me to- 
night?" "Gladly will I cause it so to be, by 
Heaven, if I can." 

And when it was time for them to sleep rather 
than to carouse, they went to rest. And the 
maiden caused Peredur's horse and arms to be 
in the same lodging with him. And the next 
morning Peredur heard a great tumult of men 
and horses around the castle. And Peredur 
arose, and armed himself and his horse, and 
went to the meadow. Then the aged woman 
and the maiden came to the gray man : " Lord," 
said they, "take the word of the youth, that he 
will never disclose what he has seen in this 
place, and we will be his sureties that he keep 
it." "I will not do so, by my faith," said the 
gray man. So Peredur fought with the host, 
and towards evening he had slain the one-third 
of them without receiving any hurt himself. 
Then said the aged woman, "Behold, many 
of thy host have been slain by the youth; do 
thou, therefore, grant him mercy." "I will 
not grant it, by my faith," said he. And the 
aged woman and the fair maiden were upon the 
battlements of the castle, looking forth. And 
at that juncture, Peredur encountered the 
yellow-haired youth and slew him. "Lord," 
said the maiden, "grant the young man 
mercy." "That will I not do, by Heaven," he 
replied; and thereupon Peredur attacked the 
auburn-haired youth, and slew him likewise. 
"It were better thou hadst accorded mercy 
to the youth before he had slain thy two sons; 
for now scarcely wilt thou thyself escape from 
him." "Go, maiden, and beseech the youth 
to grant mercy unto us, for we yield ourselves 
into his hands." So the maiden came to the 
place where Peredur was, and besought mercy 
for her father, and for all such of his vassals 
as had escaped alive. "Thou shalt have it, 
on condition that thy father and all that are 



under him go and render homage to Arthur, 
and tell him that it was his vassal Peredur 
that did him this service." "This will we do 
willingly, by Heaven." "And you shall also 
receive baptism; and I will send to Arthur, 
and beseech him to bestow this valley upon thee 
and upon thy heirs after thee forever." Then 
they went in, and the gray man and the tall 
woman saluted Peredur. And the gray man 
said unto him, "Since I have possessed this 
valley I have not seen any Christian depart 
with his life, save thyself. And we will go to 
do homage to Arthur, and to embrace the faith 
and be baptized." Then said Peredur, "To 
Heaven I render thanks that I have not broken 
my vow to the lady that best I love, which was, 
that I would not speak one word unto any 
Christian." 

That night they tarried there. And the next 
day, in the morning, the gray man, with his 
company, set forth to Arthur's Court; and 
they did homage unto Arthur, and he caused 
them to be baptized. And the gray man told 
Arthur that it was Peredur that had vanquished 
them. And Arthur gave the valley to the gray 
man and his company, to hold it of him as 
Peredur had besought. And with Arthur's 
permission, the gray man went back to the 
Round Valley. 

Peredur rode forward next day, and he trav- 
ersed a vast tract of desert, in which no dwell- 
ings were. And at length he came to a habi- 
tation, mean and small. And there he heard 
that there was a serpent that lay upon a gold 
ring, and suffered none to inhabit the country 
for seven miles around. And Peredur came 
to the place where he heard the serpent was. 
And angrily, furiously, and desperately fought 
he with the serpent; and at last he killed it, 
and took away the ring. And thus he was 
for a long time without speaking a word to any 
Christian. And therefrom he lost his colour 
and his aspect, through extreme longing after 
the Court of Arthur, and the society of the 
lady whom best he loved, and of his compan- 
ions. Then he proceeded forward to Arthur's 
Court, and on the road there met him Arthur's 
household going on a particular errand, with 
Kai at their head. And Peredur knew them 
all, but none of the household recognised him. 
"Whence comest thou, chieftain?" said Kai. 
And this he asked him twice and three times, 
and he answered him not. And Kai thrust 
him through the thigh with his lance. And 
lest he should be compelled to speak, and to 
break his vow, he went on without stopping. 






PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



53i 



"Then," said Gwalchmai, "I declare to 
Heaven, Kai, that thou hast acted ill in com- 
mitting such an outrage on a youth like this, 
who cannot speak." And Gwalchmai returned 
back to Arthur's Court. "Lady," said he 
to Gwenhwyvar, "seest thou how wicked an 
outrage Kai has committed upon this youth 
who cannot speak ; for Heaven's sake, and for 
mine, cause him to have medical care before I 
come back, and I will repay thee the charge." 

And before the men returned from their 
errand, a knight came to the meadow beside 
Arthur's Palace, to dare some one to the en- 
counter. And his challenge was accepted; 
and Peredur fought with him, and overthrew 
him. And for a week he overthrew one knight 
every day. 

And one day, Arthur and his household were 
going to Church, and they beheld a knight who 
had raised the signal for combat. "Verily," 
said Arthur, "by the valour of men, I will not 
go hence until I have my horse and my arms 
to overthrow yonder boor." Then went the 
attendants to fetch Arthur's horse and arms. 
And Peredur met the attendants as they were 
going back, and he took the horse and arms 
from them, and proceeded to the meadow; 
and all those who saw him arise and go to do 
battle with the knight, went upon the tops 
of the houses, and the mounds, and the high 
places, to behold the combat. And Peredur 
beckoned with his hand to the knight to com- 
mence the fight. And the knight thrust at him, 
but he was not thereby moved from where he 
stood. And Peredur spurred his horse, and ran 
at him wrathfully, furiously, fiercely, desper- 
ately, and with mighty rage, and he gave him a 
thrust, deadly -wounding, severe, furious, adroit, 
and strong, under his jaw, and raised him out 
of his saddle, and cast him a long way from 
him. And Peredur went back, and left the 
horse and the arms with the attendant as be- 
fore, and he went on foot to the Palace. 

Then Peredur went by the name of the 
Dumb Youth. And behold, Angharad Law 
Eurawc met him. "I declare to Heaven, 
chieftain," said she, "woeful is it that thou 
canst not speak; for couldst thou speak, I 
would love thee best of all men; and by my 
faith, although thou canst not, I do love thee 
above all." "Heaven reward thee, my sister," 
said Peredur, "by my faith I also do love thee." 
Thereupon it was known that he was Peredur. 
And then he held fellowship with Gwalchmai, 
and Owain the son of Urien, and all the house- 
hold, and he remained in Arthur's Court. 



Arthur was in Caerlleon upon Usk ; and he 
went to hunt, and Peredur went with him. 
And Peredur let loose his dog upon a hart, 
and the dog killed the hart in a desert place. 
And a short space from him he saw signs of a 
dwelling, and towards the dwelling he went, 
and he beheld a hall, and at the door of the 
hall he found bald swarthy youths playing at 
chess. And when he entered, he beheld three 
maidens sitting on a bench, and they were all 
clothed alike, as became persons of high rank. 
And he came, and sat by them upon the bench; 
and one of the maidens looked steadfastly 
upon Peredur, and wept. And Peredur asked 
her wherefore she was weeping. "Through 
grief, that I should see so fair a youth as thou 
art, slain." "Who will slay me?" inquired 
Peredur. " If thou art so daring as to remain 
here to-night, I will tell thee." "How great 
soever my danger may be from remaining here, I 
will listen unto thee." "This Palace is owned 
by him who is my father," said the maiden, 
"and he slays every one who comes hither 
without his leave." "What sort of a man is 
thy father, that he is able to slay every one 
thus?" "A man who does violence and wrong 
unto his neighbours, and who renders justice 
unto none." And hereupon he saw the youths 
arise and clear the chessmen from the board. 
And he heard a great tumult; and after the 
tumult there came in a huge black one-eyed 
man, and the maidens arose to meet him. 
And they disarrayed him, and he went and sat 
down; and after he had rested and pondered 
awhile, he looked at Peredur, and asked who 
the knight was. "Lord," said one of the maid- 
ens, "he is the fairest and gentlest youth that 
ever thou didst see. And for the sake of 
Heaven, and of thine own dignity, have patience 
with him." "For thy sake I will have patience, 
and I will grant him his life this night." Then 
Peredur came towards them to the fire, and 
partook of food and liquor, and entered into 
discourse with the ladies. And being elated 
with the liquor, he said to the black man, "It 
is a marvel to me, so mighty as thou sayest 
thou art, who could have put out thine eye." 
"It is one of my habits," said the black man, 
"that whosoever puts to me the question which 
thou hast asked, shall not escape with his life, 
either as a free gift or for a price." "Lord," 
said the maiden, "whatsoever he may say to 
thee in jest, and through the excitement of 
liquor, make good that which thou saidst and 
didst promise me just now." "I will do so, 
gladly, for thy sake," said he. "Willingly 



532 



THE MABINOGION 



will I grant him his life this night." And that 
night thus they remained. 

And the next day the black man got up, and 
put on his armour, and said to Peredur, "Arise, 
man, and suffer death." And Peredur said 
unto him, "Do one of two things, black man; 
if thou wilt fight with me, either throw off thy 
own armour, or give arms to me, that I may 
encounter thee." "Ha, man," said he, 
" couldst thou fight, if thou hadst arms ? Take, 
then, what arms thou dost choose." And 
thereupon the maiden came to Peredur with 
such arms as pleased him; and he fought with 
the black man, and forced him to crave his 
mercy. "Black man, thou shalt have mercy, 
provided thou tell me who thou art, and who 
put out thine eye." "Lord, I will tell thee; 
I lost it in fighting with the Black Serpent of the 
Cam. There is a mound, which is called the 
Mound of Mourning; and on the mound there 
is a earn, and in the earn there is a serpent, and 
on the tail of the serpent there is a stone, and 
the virtues of the stone are such, that whosoever 
should hold it in one hand, in the other he will 
have as much gold as he may desire. And in 
fighting with this serpent was it that I lost my 
eye. And the Black Oppressor am I called. 
And for this reason I am called the Black Op- 
pressor, that there is not a single man around 
me whom I have not oppressed, and justice 
have I done unto none." "Tell me," said 
Peredur, "how far is it hence?" "The same 
day that thou settest forth, thou wilt come to the 
Palace of the Sons of the King of the Tortures." 
"Wherefore are they called thus?" "The 
Addanc of the Lake slays them once every day. 
When thou goest thence, thou wilt come to the 
Court of the Countess of the Achievements." 
"What achievements are there?" asked Pere- 
dur. "Three hundred men there are in her 
household, and unto every stranger that comes 
to the Court, the achievements of her house- 
hold are related. And this is the manner of it, 
— the three hundred men of the household sit 
next unto the Lady; and that not through 
disrespect unto the guests, but that they may 
relate the achievements of the household. 
And the day that thou goest thence, thou wilt 
reach the Mound of Mourning, and round about 
the mound there are the owners of three 
hundred tents guarding the serpent." "Since 
thou hast, indeed, been an oppressor so long," 
said Peredur, "I will cause that thou continue 
so no longer." So he slew him. 

Then the maiden spoke, and began to con- 
verse with him. "If thou wast poor when 



thou earnest here, henceforth thou wilt be rich 
through the treasure of the black man whom 
thou hast slain. Thou seest the many lovely 
maidens that there are in this Court; thou 
shalt have her whom thou best likest for the 
lady of thy love." "Lady, I came not hither 
from my country to woo; but match yourselves 
as it liketh you with the comely youths I see 
here; and none of your goods do I desire, 
for I need them not." Then Peredur rode 
forward, and he came to the Palace of the Sons 
of the King of the Tortures; and when he 
entered the Palace, he saw none but women; 
and they rose up, and were joyful at his com- 
ing; and as they began to discourse with him, 
he beheld a charger arrive, with a saddle upon 
it, and a corpse in the saddle. And one of the 
women arose, and took the corpse from the 
saddle, and anointed it in a vessel of warm 
water, which was below the door, and placed 
precious balsam upon it; and the man rose up 
alive, and came to the place where Peredur 
was, and greeted him, and was joyful to see 
him. And two other men came in upon their 
saddles, and the maiden treated these two in the 
same manner as she had done the first. Then 
Peredur asked the chieftain wherefore it was 
thus. And they told him, that there was an 
Addanc in a cave, which slew them once every 
day. And thus they remained that night. 

And next morning the youths arose to sally 
forth, and Peredur besought them, for the sake 
of the ladies of their love, to permit him to go 
with them; but they refused him, saying, "If 
thou shouldst be slain there, thou hast none to 
bring thee back to life again." And they rode 
forward, and Peredur followed after them; 
and, after they had disappeared out of his sight, 
he came to a mound, whereon sat the fairest 
lady he had ever beheld. "I know thy quest," 
said she; "thou art going to encounter the 
Addanc, and he will slay thee, and that not by 
courage, but by craft. He has a cave, and at 
the entrance of the cave there is a stone pillar, 
and he sees every one that enters, and none see 
him; and from behind the pillar he slays every 
one with a poisonous dart. And if thou 
wouldst pledge me thy faith to love me above 
all women, I would give thee a stone, by which 
thou shouldst see him when thou goest in, and 
he should not see thee." "I will, by my troth," 
said Peredur, "for when first I beheld thee I 
loved thee; and where shall I seek thee?" 
" When thou seekest me, seek towards India." 
And the maiden vanished, after placing the 
stone in Peredur's hand. 



PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



533 



And he came towards a valley, through which 
ran a river; and the borders of the valley were 
wooded, and on each side of the river were 
level meadows. And on one side of the river 
he saw a flock of white sheep, and on the other 
a flock of black sheep. And whenever one 
of the white sheep bleated, one of the black 
sheep would cross over and become white; 
and when one of the black sheep bleated, one 
of the white sheep would cross over and become 
black. And he saw a tall tree by the side of the 
river, one half of which was in flames from the 
root to the top, and the other half was green 
and in full leaf. And nigh thereto he saw 
a youth sitting upon a mound, and two grey- 
hounds, white-breasted and spotted, in leashes, 
lying by his side. And certain was he that he 
had never seen a youth of so royal a bearing 
as he. And in the wood opposite he heard 
hounds raising a herd of deer. And Peredur 
saluted the youth, and the youth greeted him 
in return. And there were three roads leading 
from the mound; two of them were wide roads, 
and the third was more narrow. And Peredur 
inquired where the three roads went. " One of 
them goes to my palace," said the youth; " and 
one of two things I counsel thee to do; either 
to proceed to my palace, which is before thee, 
and where thou wilt find my wife, or else to 
remain here to see the hounds chasing the 
roused deer from the wood to the plain. And 
thou shalt see the best greyhounds thou didst 
ever behold, and the boldest in the chase, kill 
them by the water beside us; and when it is 
time to go to meat, my page will come with my 
horse to meet me, and thou shalt rest in my 
palace to-night." "Heaven reward thee; but 
I cannot tarry, for onward must I go." " The 
other road leads to the town, which is near here, 
and wherein food and liquor may be bought; 
and the road which is narrower than the others 
goes towards the cave of the Addanc." " With 
thy permission, young man, I will go that way." 

And Peredur went towards the cave. And 
he took the stone in his left hand, and his lance 
in his right. And as he went in he perceived 
the Addanc, and he pierced him through with 
his lance, and cut off his head. And as he 
came from the cave, behold the three compan- 
ions were at the entrance; and they saluted 
Peredur, and told him that there was a pre- 
diction that he should slay that monster. 
And Peredur gave the head to the young men, 
and they offered him in marriage whichever of 
the three sisters he might choose, and half their 
kingdom with her. " I came not hither to 



woo," said Peredur, "but if peradventure I 
took a wife, I should prefer your sister to all 
others." And Peredur rode forward, and he 
heard a noise behind him. And he looked 
back, and saw a man upon a red horse, with red 
armour upon him; and the man rode up by 
his side, and saluted him, and wished him the 
favour of Heaven and of man. And Peredur 
greeted the youth kindly. "Lord, I come to 
make a request unto thee." " What wouldest 
thou?" "That thou shouldest take me as 
thine attendant." " Whom then should I take 
as my attendant, if I did so?" "I will not 
conceal from thee what kindred I am of. 
Etlym Gleddyv Coch am I called, an Earl 
from the East Country." " I marvel that thou 
shouldest offer to become attendant to a man 
whose possessions are no greater than thine 
own; for I have but an earldom like thyself. 
But since thou desirest to be my attendant, I 
will take thee joyfully." 

And they went forward to the Court of the 
Countess, and all they of the Court were glad 
at their coming; and they were told it was not 
through disrespect they were placed below the 
household, but that such was the usage of 
the Court. For, whoever should overthrow the 
three hundred men of her household, would sit 
next the Countess, and she would love him 
above all men. And Peredur having over- 
thrown the three hundred men of her house- 
hold, sat down beside her, and the Countess 
said, "I thank Heaven that I have a youth so 
fair and so valiant as thou, since I have not 
obtained the man whom best I love." "Who 
is he whom best thou lovest?" "By my 
faith, Etlym Gleddyv Coch is the man whom I 
love best, and I have never seen him." " Of a 
truth, Etlym is my companion ; and behold here 
he is, and for his sake did I come to joust with 
thy household. And he could have done so 
better than I, had it pleased him. And I do 
give thee unto him." " Heaven reward thee, 
fair youth, and I will take the man whom I 
love above all others." And the Countess be- 
came Etlym's bride from that moment. 

And the next day Peredur set forth towards 
the Mound of Mourning. " By thy hand, lord, 
but I will go with thee," said Etlym. Then 
they went forwards till they came in sight of the 
mound and the tents. " Go unto yonder men," 
said Peredur to Etlym, "and desire them to 
come and do me homage." So Etlym went unto 
them, and said unto them thus, — ■ " Come and 
do homage to my lord." "Who is thy lord?" 
said they. " Peredur with the long lance is my 



534 



THE MABINOGION 



lord," said Etlym. "Were it permitted to slay 
a messenger, thou shouldest not go back to thy 
lord alive, for making unto Kings, and Earls, 
and Barons so arrogant a demand as to go and 
do him homage." Peredur desired him to go 
back to them, and to give them their choice, 
either to do him homage, or to do battle with 
him. And they chose rather to do battle. 
And that day Peredur overthrew the owners of 
a hundred tents; and the next day he over- 
threw the owners of a hundred more; and the 
third day the remaining hundred took counsel 
to do homage to Peredur. And Peredur in- 
quired of them, wherefore they were there. 
And they told him they were guarding the ser- 
pent until he should die. " For then should we 
fight for the stone among ourselves, and who- 
ever should be conqueror among us would 
have the stone." "Await here," said Peredur, 
"and I will go to encounter the serpent." 
"Not so, lord," said they; "we will go alto- 
gether to encounter the serpent." "Verily," 
said Peredur, "that will I not permit; for if 
the serpent be slain, I shall derive no more fame 
therefrom than one of you." Then he went to 
the place where the serpent was, and slew it, 
and came back to them, and said, " Reckon 
up what you have spent since you have been 
here, and I will repay you to the full." And 
he paid to each what he said was his claim. 
And he required of them only that they should 
acknowledge themselves his vassals. And he 
said to Etlym, " Go back unto her whom thou 
lovest best, and I will go forwards, and I will 
reward thee for having been my attendant." 
And he gave Etlym the stone. " Heaven repay 
thee and prosper thee," said Etlym. 

And Peredur rode thence, and he came to the 
fairest valley he had ever seen, through which 
ran a river; and there he beheld many tents 
of various colours. And he marvelled still 
more at the number of water-mills and of wind- 
mills that he saw. And there rode up with him 
a tall auburn-haired man, in a workman's 
garb, and Peredur inquired of him who he 
was. "I am the chief miller," said he, "of 
all the mills yonder." "Wilt thou give me 
lodging?" said Peredur. "I will, gladly," he 
answered. And Peredur came to the miller's 
house, and the miller had a fair and pleasant 
dwelling. And Peredur asked money as a 
loan from the miller, that he might buy meat and 
liquor for himself and for the household, and 
he promised that he would pay him again 
ere he went thence. And he inquired of the 
miller, wherefore such a multitude was there 



assembled. Said the miller to Peredur, " One 
thing is certain: either thou art a man from 
afar, or thou art beside thyself. The Empress 
of Christinobyl the Great is here; and she will 
have no one but the man who is most valiant ; 
for riches does she not require. And it was 
impossible to bring food for so many thou- 
sands as are here, therefore were all these 
mills constructed." And that night they took 
their rest. 

And the next day Peredur arose, and he 
equipped himself and his horse for the tourna- 
ment. And among the other tents he beheld 
one, which was the fairest he had ever seen. 
And he saw a beauteous maiden leaning her 
head out of a window of the tent, and he had 
never seen a maiden more loveiy than she. 
And upon her was a garment of satin. And he 
gazed fixedly on the maiden, and began to love 
her greatly. And he remained there, gazing 
upon the maiden from morning until mid-day, 
and from mid-day until evening; and then the 
tournament was ended, and he went to his 
lodging and drew off his armour. Then he 
asked money of the miller as a loan, and the 
miller's wife was wroth with Peredur; never- 
theless, the rniller lent him the money. And 
the next day he did in like manner as he had 
done the day before. And at night he came to 
his lodging, and took money as a loan from the 
miller. And the third day, as he was in the 
same place, gazing upon the maiden, he felt 
a hard blow between the neck and the shoulder, 
from the edge of an axe. And when he looked 
behind him, he saw that it was the miller; 
and the miller said to him, "Do one of two 
things: either turn thy head from hence, 
or go to the tournament." And Peredur 
smiled on the miller, and went to the tourna- 
ment; and all that encountered him that day 
he overthrew. And as many as he vanquished 
he sent as a gift to the Empress, and their horses 
and arms he sent as a gift to the wife of the 
miller, in payment of the borrowed money. 
Peredur attended the tournament until all were 
overthrown, and he sent all the men to the 
prison of the Empress, and the horses and arms 
to the wife of the miller, in payment of the bor- 
rowed money. And the Empress sent to the 
Knight of the Mill, to ask him to come and 
visit her. And Peredur went not for the first 
nor for the second message. And the third 
time she sent a hundred knights to bring him 
against his will, and they went to him and told 
him their mission from the Empress. And 
Peredur fought well with them, and caused 



PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



535 



them to be bound like stags, and thrown into 
the mill-dike. And the Empress sought ad- 
vice of a wise man who was in her counsel; 
and he said to her, "With thy permission, I 
will go to him myself." So he came to Peredur, 
and saluted him, and besought him, for the sake 
of the lady of his love, to come and visit the 
Empress. And they went, together with the 
miller. And Peredur went and sat down in 
the outer chamber of the tent, and she came 
and placed herself by his side. And there 
was but little discourse between them. And 
Peredur took his leave, and went to his 
lodging. 

And the next day he came to visit her, and 
when he came into the tent there was no one 
chamber less decorated than the others. And 
they knew not where he would sit. And Peredur 
went and sat beside the Empress, and discoursed 
with her courteously. And while they were 
thus, they beheld a black man enter with a 
goblet full of wine in his hand. And he dropped 
upon his knee before the Empress, and besought 
her to give it to no one who would not fight with 
him for it. And she looked upon Peredur. 
"Lady," said he, "bestow on me the goblet." 
And Peredur drank the wine, and gave the gob- 
let to the miller's wife. And while they were 
thus, behold there entered a black man of 
larger stature than the other, with a wild beast's 
claw in his hand, wrought into the form of a 
goblet and filled with wine. And he presented 
it to the Empress, and besought her to give it 
to no one but the man who would fight with him. 
"Lady," said Peredur, "bestow it on me." 
And she gave it to him. And Peredur drank 
the wine, and sent the goblet to the wife of the 
miller. And while they were thus, behold a 
rough-looking, crisp-haired man, taller than 
either of the others, came in with a bowl in his 
hand full of wine; and he bent upon his knee, 
and gave it into the hands of the Empress, and 
he besought her to give it to none but him who 
would fight with him for it; and she gave it to 
Peredur, and he sent it to the miller's wife. 
And that night Peredur returned to his lodging; 
and the next day he accoutred himself and his 
horse, and went to the meadow and slew the 
three men. Then Peredur proceeded to the 
tent, and the Empress said to him, "Goodly 
Peredur, remember the faith thou didst pledge 
me when I gave thee the stone, and thou didst 
kill the Addanc." "Lady," answered he, 
"thou sayest truth, I do remember it." And 
Peredur was entertained by the Empress four- 
teen years, as the story relates. 



Arthur was at Caerlleon upon Usk, his 
principal palace; and in the centre of the floor 
of the hall were four men sitting on a carpet of 
velvet, Owain the son of Urien, and Gwalchmai 
the son of Gwyar, and Howel the son of Emyr 
Llydaw, and Peredur of the long lance. And 
thereupon they saw a black curly-headed 
maiden enter, riding upon a yellow mule, 
with jagged thongs in her hand to urge it on; 
and havinga rough and hideous aspect. Blacker 
were her face and her two hands than the 
blackest iron covered with pitch; and her hue 
was not more frightful than her form. High 
cheeks had she, and a face lengthened down- 
wards, and a short nose with distended nostrils. 
And one eye was of a piercing mottled gray, 
and the other was as black as jet, deep-sunk 
in her head. And her teeth were long and 
yellow, more yellow were they than the flower 
of the broom. And her stomach rose from 
the breast-bone, higher than her chin. And 
her back was in the shape of a crook, and her 
legs were large and bony. And her figure was 
very thin and spare, except her feet and her 
legs, which were of huge size. And she 
greeted Arthur and all his household except 
Peredur. And to Peredur she spoke harsh 
and angry words. "Peredur, I greet thee not, 
seeing that thou dost not merit it. Blind was 
fate in giving thee fame and favour. When 
thou wast in the Court of the Lame King, 
and didst see there the youth bearing the stream- 
ing spear, from the points of which were drops 
of blood flowing in streams, even to the hand 
of the youth, and many other wonders likewise, 
thou didst not inquire their meaning nor their 
cause. Hadst thou done so, the King would 
have been restored to health, and his domin- 
ions to peace. Whereas from henceforth, he 
will have to endure battles and conflicts, and 
his knights will perish, and wives will be 
widowed, and maidens will be left portionless, 
and all this is because of thee." Then said 
she unto Arthur, " May it please thee, lord, my 
dwelling is far hence, in the stately castle of 
which thou hast heard, and therein are five 
hundred and sixty-six knights of the order of 
Chivalry, and the lady whom best he loves with 
each; and whoever would acquire fame in 
arms, and encounters, and conflicts, he will gain 
it there, if he deserve it. And whoso would 
reach the summit of fame and of honour, I 
know where he may find it. There is a castle 
on a lofty mountain, and there is a maiden 
therein, and she is detained a prisoner there, 
and whoever shall set her free will attain the 



53 6 



THE MABINOGION 



summit of the fame of the world." And there- 
upon she rode away. 

Said Gwalchmai, "By my faith, I will not 
rest tranquilly until I have proved if I can 
release the maiden." And many of Arthur's 
household joined themselves with him. Then, 
likewise, said Peredur, " By my faith, I will not 
rest tranquilly until I know the story and the 
meaning of the lance whereof the black maiden 
spoke." And while they were equipping them- 
selves, behold a knight came to the gate. And 
he had the size and strength of a warrior, and 
was equipped with arms and habiliments. 
And he went forward, and saluted Arthur and 
all his household, except Gwalchmai. And 
the knight had upon his shoulder a shield, 
ingrained with gold, with a fesse of azure blue 
upon it, and his whole armour was of the same 
hue. And he said to Gwalchmai, "Thou didst 
slay my lord by thy treachery and deceit, and 
that will I prove upon thee." Then Gwalchmai 
rose up. "Behold," said he, "here is my gage 
against thee, to maintain, either in this place 
or wherever else thou wilt, that I am not a trai- 
tor or deceiver." "Before the King whom I 
obey, will I that my encounter with thee take 
place," said the knight. "Willingly," said 
Gwalchmai; "go forward, and I will follow 
thee." So the knight went forth, and Gwalch- 
mai accoutred himself, and there was offered 
unto him abundance of armour, but he would 
take none but his own. And when Gwalch- 
mai and Peredur were equipped, they set 
forth to follow him, by reason of their fellow- 
ship and of the great friendship that was be- 
tween them. And they did not go after him 
in company together, but each went his own 
way. 

At the dawn of day Gwalchmai came to a 
valley, and in the valley he saw a fortress, and 
within the fortress a vast palace and lofty tow- 
ers around it. And he beheld a knight com- 
ing out to hunt from the other side, mounted 
on a spirited black snorting palfrey, that ad- 
vanced at a prancing pace, proudly stepping, 
and nimbly bounding, and sure of foot; and 
this was the man to whom the palace belonged. 
And Gwalchmai saluted him. " Heaven prosper 
thee, chieftain," said he, "and whence comest 
thou?" "I come," answered Gwalchmai, 
"from the Court of Arthur." "And art thou 
Arthur's vassal?" "Yes, by my faith," said 
Gwalchmai. "I will give thee good counsel," 
said the knight. "I see that thou art tired 
and weary; go unto my palace, if it may please 
thee, and tarry there to-night," "Willingly, 



lord," said he, "and Heaven reward thee." 
"Take this ring as a token to the porter, and go 
forward to yonder tower, and therein thou 
wilt find my sister." And Gwalchmai went to ' 
the gate, and showed the ring, and proceeded 
to the tower. And on entering he beheld a 
large blazing fire, burning without smoke and 
with a bright and lofty flame, and a beauteous 
and stately maiden was sitting on a chair by 
the fire. And the maiden was glad at his 
coming, and welcomed him, and advanced to 
meet him. And he went and sat beside the 
maiden, and they took their repast. And 
when their repast was over, they discoursed 
pleasantly together. And while they were thus, 
behold there entered a venerable, hoary- 
headed man. "Ah! base girl," said he, "if 
thou didst think that it was right for thee to 
entertain and to sit by yonder man, thou 
wouldest not do so." And he withdrew his 
head, and went forth. "Ah! chieftain," said 
the maiden, " if thou wilt do as I counsel thee, 
thou wilt shut the door, lest the man should have 
a plot against thee." Upon that Gwalchmai 
arose, and when he came near unto the door, 
the man, with sixty others, fully armed, were 
ascending the tower. And Gwalchmai de- 
fended the door with a chessboard, that none 
might enter until the man should return from 
the chase. And thereupon, behold the Earl 
arrived. "What is all this?" asked he. "It 
is a sad thing," said the hoary-headed man; 
"the young girl yonder has been sitting and 
eating with him who slew your father. He is 
Gwalchmai, the son of Gwyar." "Hold thy 
peace, then," said the Earl, "I will go in." 
And the Earl was joyful concerning Gwalch- 
mai. "Ha! chieftain," said he, "it was 
wrong of thee to come to my court, when thou 
knewest that thou didst slay my father; and 
though we cannot avenge him, Heaven will 
avenge him upon thee." "My soul," said 
Gwalchmai, "thus it is: I came not here either 
to acknowledge or to deny having slain thy 
father; but I am on a message from Arthur, 
and therefore do I crave the space of a year 
until I shall return from my embassy, and then, 
upon my faith, I will come back unto this 
palace, and do one of two things, either ac- 
knowledge it, or deny it. " And the time was 
granted him willingly; and he remained there 
that night. And the next morning he rode 
forth. And the story relates nothing further 
of Gwalchmai respecting this adventure. 

And Peredur rode forward. And he wan- 
dered over the whole island, seeking tidings of 



PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



537 



the black maiden, and he could meet with 
none. And he came to an unknown land, in 
the centre of a valley, watered by a river. And 
as he traversed the valley he beheld a horseman 
coming towards him, and wearing the garments 
of a priest; and he besought his blessing. 
"Wretched man," said he, "thou meritest no 
blessing, and thou wouldest not be profited by 
one, seeing that thou art clad in armour on 
such a day as this." " And what day is to-day ?" 
said Peredur. "To-day is Good Friday," 
he answered. "Chide me not that I knew 
not this, seeing that it is a year to-day since I 
journeyed forth from my country." Then he 
dismounted, and led his horse in his hand. 
And he had not proceeded far along the high 
road before he came to a cross road, and the 
cross road traversed a wood. And on the other 
side of the wood he saw an unfortified castle, 
which appeared to be inhabited. And at the 
gate of the castle there met him the priest whom 
he had seen before, and he asked his blessing. 
"The blessing of Heaven be unto thee," said 
he, " it is more fitting to travel in thy present 
guise than as thou wast erewhile; and this 
night thou shalt tarry with me." So he re- 
mained there that night. 

And the next day Peredur sought to go forth. 
" To-day may no one journey. Thou shalt re- 
main with me to-day and to-morrow, and the 
day following, and I will direct thee as best I 
may to the place which thou art seeking." 
And the fourth day Peredur sought to go forth, 
and he entreated the priest to tell him how 
he should find the Castle of Wonders. " What 
I know thereof I will tell thee," he replied. 
" Go over yonder mountain, and on the other 
side of the mountain thou wilt come to a 
river, and in the valley wherein the river runs 
is a King's palace, wherein the King sojourned 
during Easter. And if thou mayest have tid- 
ings anywhere of the Castle of Wonders, thou 
wilt have them there." 

Then Peredur rode forward. And he came to 
the valley in which was the river, and there met 
him a number of men going to hunt, and in 
the midst of them was a man of exalted rank, 
and Peredur saluted him. " Choose, chieftain," 
said the man, " whether thou wilt go with me to 
the chase, or wilt proceed to my palace, and I 
will despatch one of my household to com- 
mend thee to my daughter, who is there, and 
who will entertain thee with food and liquor 
until I return from hunting; and whatever 
may be thine errand, such as I can obtain for 
thee thou shalt gladly have." And the King 



sent a little yellow page with him as an at- 
tendant; and when they came to the palace 
the lady had arisen, and was about to wash 
before meat. Peredur went forward, and she 
saluted him joyfully, and placed him by her 
side. And they took their repast. And what- 
soever Peredur said unto her, she laughed 
loudly, so that all in the palace could hear. 
Then spoke the yellow page to the lady. " By 
my faith," said he, "this youth is already thy 
husband; or if he be not, thy mind and thy 
thoughts are set upon him." And the little 
yellow page went unto the King, and told him 
that it seemed to him that the youth whom he 
had met with was his daughter's husband, or 
if he were not so already that he would shortly 
become so unless he were cautious. "What 
is thy counsel in this matter, youth?" said the 
King. " My counsel is," he replied, " that thou 
set strong men upon him, to seize him, until 
thou hast ascertained the truth respecting this." 
So he set strong men upon Peredur, who seized 
him and cast him into prison. And the maiden 
went before her father, and asked him where- 
fore he had caused the youth from Arthur's 
Court to be imprisoned. " In truth," he an- 
swered, " he shall not be free to-night, nor to- 
morrow, nor the day following, and he shall 
not come from where he is." She replied not 
to what the King had said, but she went to the 
youth. "Is it unpleasant to thee to be here?" 
said she. "I should not care if I were not," 
he replied. "Thy couch and thy treatment 
shall be in no wise inferior to that of the King 
himself, and thou shalt have the best enter- 
tainment that the palace affords. And if it 
were more pleasing to thee that my couch should 
be here, that I might discourse with thee, it 
should be so, cheerfully." "This can I not 
refuse," said Peredur. And he remained in 
prison that night. And the maiden provided 
all that she had promised him. 

And the next day Peredur heard a tumult in 
the town. "Tell me, fair maiden, what is that 
tumult?" said Peredur. "All the King's 
host and his forces have come to the town to- 
day." "And what seek they here?" he in- 
quired. "There is an Earl near this place who 
possesses two earldoms, and is as powerful 
as a king; and an engagement will take place 
between them to-day." "I beseech thee," 
said Peredur, " to cause a horse and arms to be 
brought, that I may view the encounter, and I 
promise to come back to my prison again." 
"Gladly," said she, "will I provide thee with 
horse and arms." So she gave him a horse and 



538 



THE MABINOGION 



arms, and a bright scarlet robe of honour over 
his armour, and a yellow shield upon his 
shoulder. And he went to the combat; and as 
many of the Earl's men as encountered him 
that day he overthrew; and he returned to his 
prison. And the maiden asked tidings of 
Peredur, and he answered her not a word. 
And she went and asked tidings of her father, 
and inquired who had acquitted himself best 
of the household. And be said that he knew 
not, but that it was a man with a scarlet robe 
of honour over his armour, and a yellow shield 
upon his shoulder. Then she smiled, and 
returned to where Peredur was, and did him 
great honour that night. And for three days 
did Peredur slay the Earl's men; and before 
any one could know who he was, be returned to 
his prison. And the fourth day Peredur slew 
the Earl himself. And the maiden went unto 
her father, and inquired of him the news. 
"I have good news for thee," said the King; 
"the Earl is slain, and I am the owner of his 
two earldoms." " Knowest thou, lord, who 
slew him?" "I do not know," said the King. 
"It was the knight with the scarlet robe of 
honour and the yellow shield." "Lord," 
said she, " I know who that is." " By Heaven ! " 
he exclaimed, "who is he?" "Lord," she 
replied, "he is the knight whom thou hast 
imprisoned." Then he went unto Peredur, 
and saluted him, and told him that he would 
reward the service he had done him, in any way 
he might desire. And when they went to meat, 
Peredur was placed beside the King, and the 
maiden on the other side of Peredur. "I 
will give thee," said the King, " my daughter 
in marriage, and half my kingdom with her, 
and the two earldoms as a gift." " Heaven 
reward thee, lord," said Peredur, "but I 
came not here to woo." "What seekest thou 
then, chieftain?" "I am seeking tidings of 
the Castle of Wonders?" "Thy enterprise is 
greater, chieftain, than thou wilt wish to pur- 
sue," said the maiden, "nevertheless, tidings 
shalt thou have of the Castle, and thou shalt 
have a guide through my father's dominions, 
and a sufficiency of provisions for thy journey, 
for thou art, O chieftain, the man whom best 
I love." Then she said to him, "Go over yon- 
der mountain, and thou wilt find a lake, and 
in the middle of the lake there is a Castle, and 
that is the Castle that is called the Castle of 
Wonders; and we know not what wonders are 
therein, but thus is it called." 

And Peredur proceeded towards the Castle, 
and the gate of the Castle was open. And 



when he came to the hall, the door was open, and 
he entered. And he beheld a chessboard in the 
hall, and the chessmen were playing against 
each other, by themselves. And the side that 
he favoured lost the game, and thereupon the 
others set up a shout, as though they had been 
living men. And Peredur was wroth, and 
took the chessmen in his lap, and cast the chess- 
board into the lake. And when he had done 
thus, behold the black maiden came in, and she 
said to him, "The welcome of Heaven be not 
unto thee. Thou hadst rather do evil than 
good." " What complaint hast thou against 
me, maiden?" said Peredur. "That thou hast 
occasioned unto the Empress the loss of her 
chessboard, which she would not have lost for 
all her empire. And the way in which thou 
mayest recover the chessboard is, to repair to 
the Castle of Ysbidinongyl, where is a black 
man, who lays waste the dominions of the 
Empress; and if thou canst slay him, thou wilt 
recover the chessboard. But if thou goest there, 
thou wilt not return alive." "Wilt thou direct 
me thither?" said Peredur. "I will show 
thee the way," she replied. So he went to the 
Castle of Ysbidinongyl, and he fought with the 
black man. And the black man besought mercy 
of Peredur. "Mercy will I grant thee," said 
he, "on condition that thou cause the chess- 
board to be restored to the place where it was 
when 1 entered the hall." Then the maiden 
came to him, and said, "The malediction of 
Heaven attend thee for thy work, since thou hast 
left that monster alive, who lays waste all the 
possessions of the Empress." "I granted him 
his life," said Peredur, " that he might cause the 
chessboard to be restored." "The chessboard 
is not in the place where thou didst find it; 
go back, therefore, and slay him," answered 
she. So Peredur went back, and slew the black 
man. And when he returned to the palace, he 
found the black maiden there. "Ah! maiden," 
said Peredur, "where is the Empress?" "I 
declare to Heaven that thou wilt not see her 
now, unless thou dost slay the monster that is 
in yonder forest." "What monster is there?" 
" It is a stag that is as swift as the swiftest bird; 
and he has one horn in his forehead, as long as 
the shaft of a spear, and as sharp as whatever 
is sharpest. And he destroys the branches of 
the best trees in the forest, and he kills every 
animal that he meets with therein; and those 
that he doth not slay perish of hunger. And 
what is worse than that, he comes every night, 
and drinks up the fish-pond, and leaves the 
fishes exposed, so that for the most part they 






PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWC 



539 



die before the water returns again." " Maiden," 
said Peredur, "wilt thou come and show me 
this animal?" "Not so," said the maiden, 
"for he has not permitted any mortal to enter 
the forest for al>ove a twelvemonth. Behold, 
here is a little dog belonging to the Kmpress, 
which will rouse the stag, and will chase him 
towards thee, and the stag will attack thee." 
Then the little dog went as a guide to IVrcdur, 
and roused the stag, and brought him towards 
the place where Peredur was. And the stag 
attacked Peredur, and he let him pass by him, 
and as he did so, he smote off his head with his 
sword. And while he was looking at the head 
of the stag, he saw a lady on horseback coming 
towards him. And she took the little dog in 
the lappet of her cap, and the head and the body 
of the stay lay before her. And around the 
stag's neck was a golden collar. "I la! chief- 
tain," said she, " uncourteously hast thou acted 
in slaying the fairest jewel that was in my 
dominions." "I was entreated so to do; and 
is there any way by which I can obtain thy 
friendship?" "There is," she replied. "Go 
thou forward unto yonder mountain, and there 
thou wilt find a grove; and in the grove there 
is a cromlech; do thou there challenge a man 
three times to fight, and thou shalt have my 
friendship." 

So Peredur proceeded onward, and came to 
the side of the grove, and challenged any man 
to fight. And a black man arose from beneath 
the cromlech, mounted upon a bony horse, 
and both he and his horse were clad in huge 
rusty armour. And they fought. And as of- 
ten as Peredur cast the black man to the earth, 
he would jump again into his saddle. And 
Peredur dismounted, and drew his sword; and 
thereupon the black man disappeared with 
Peredur's horse and his own, so that he could 
not gain sight of him a second time. And 
Peredur went along the mountain, and on the 
other side of the mountain he beheld a castle 
in the valley, wherein was a river. And he 
went to the castle; and as he entered it, he saw 
a hall, and the door of the hall was open, and 



he went in. And there he saw a lame gray- 
headed man sitting on one side of the hall, 
with Gwalchmai Beside him. And Peredur 
beheld his horse, which the black man had 
taken, in the same stall with that of ( rwal< hmai. 
And they were glad concerning Peredur. And 
he went and seated himself on the other side 
of the hoary-headed man. Then, behold a 
yellow haired youth came, and bent upon the 
knee before Peredur, nd besought his friend- 
ship. "Lord," said the youth, "it was 1 that 
came in the form of the black maiden to Arthur's 
Court, and when thou didst throw down the 
chessboard, and when thou didst slay the 
black man of Ysbidinongyl, and when thou 
didst slay the stag, and when thou didst go 
to fight the black man of the cromlech. And 
I came with the bloody head in the salver, 
and with the lance that streamed with blood 
from the point to the hand, all along the shall ; 
and the head was thy cousin's, and he was 
killed by the sorceresses of Gloucester, who 
also lamed thine uncle; and I am thy cousin. 
And there is a prediction that thou art to 
avenge these things." Then Peredur and 
Gwalchmai took counsel, and sent to Arthur 
and his household, to beseech them to come 
against the sorceresses. And they began to 
fight with them; and one of the sorceresses 
slew one of Arthur's men before Peredur's 
face, and Peredur bade her forbear. And 
the sorceress slew a man before Peredur's 
face a second time, and a second time he for- 
bade her. And the third time the sorceress 
slew a man before the face of Peredur; and 
then Peredur drew his sword, and smote the 
sorceress on the helmet; and all her head 
armour was split in two parts. And she set 
up a cry, and desired the other sorceresses to 
flee, and told them that this was Peredur, tin- 
man who had learned Chivalry with (hem, and 
by whom they were destined to be slain. Then 

Arthur and his household fell upon the sorcer- 
esses, and slew the sorceresses of Gloucester 
every one. And thus is it related concerning 
the Castle of Wonders. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Addison, Joseph, 198 
Arnold, Matthew, 478 
Ascham, Roger, 38 
Austen, Jane, 328 

Bacon, Francis, Viscount St. 

Albans, 74 
Berkeley, George, Bishop, 216 
Borrow, George, 417 
Boswell, James, 277 
Bourchier, Sir John, 22 
Browne, Sir Thomas, 11 1 
Bunyan, John, 139 
Burke, Edmund, 267 
Burton, Robert, 97 

Carlyle, Thomas, 366 
Caxton, William, 21 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 12 
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 317 
Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl 

of Shaftesbury, 197 
Cross, Mary Ann Evans, 458 

Defoe, Daniel, 176 
Dekker, Thomas, 89 
De Quincey, Thomas, 357 
Dickens, Charles, 440 
Dryden, John, 146 

"Eliot, George," 458 

Evans (Cross), Mary Ann, 458 

Fielding, Henry, 226 
Foxe, John, 41 



Francis, Sir Philip (?), 292 
Froude, James Anthony, 450 
Fuller, Thomas, 117 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 255 
Greene, Robert, 64 
Guest, Lady Charlotte, 521 

Hazlitt, William, 349 
Henry III, 4 
Hobbes, Thomas, 102 
Hooker, Richard, 54 
Hume, David, 243 
Hunt, Leigh, 354 

Jeffrey, Francis, 320 
Johnson, Samuel, 234 
Jonson, Ben, 94 
Junius, 292 

Lamb, Charles, 337 
Landor, Walter Savage, 345 
Latimer, Hugh, 36 
Locke, John, 163 
Lodge, Thomas, 60 
Lyly, John, 57 

Macaulav, Thomas Babington, 

Lord, 382 
Macpherson, James (?), 275 
Malory, Sir Thomas, 18 
Mandeville, Sir John (?), 6 
Milton, John, 120 
More, Sir Thomas, 29 

Nashe, Thomas, 86 



Newman, John Henry (Car- 
dinal), 409 

Ossian, 275 

Pater, Walter, 492 

Pecock, Reginald, Bishop, 16 

Pepys, Samuel, 168 

Poore, Richard (?), Bishop, 2 

Richardson, Samuel, 221 
Rolle, Richard, 5 
Ruskin, John, 463 

Scott, Sir Walter, 308 
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 197 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 45 
Smollett, Tobias, 251 
South, Robert, 173 
Southey, Robert, 321 
Steele, Sir Richard, 207 
Stephen, Leslie, 489 
Sterne, Laurence, 247 
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 509 
Swift, Jonathan, 184 

Taylor, Jeremy, 136 
Temple, Sir William, 143 
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 

425 
Trevisa, John de, n 
Tyndale, William, 34 

Walton, Izaak, 104 
Wiclif, John, 9 
Wordsworth, William, 298 



541 



INDEX OF TITLES AND SUB-TITLES 



Acts and Monuments of These Latter 

and perillous i) ayes 41 

Adversity, Of 76 

/Esop AND Rhodope 345 

Age, Of Youth and 85 

Anatomy of Melancholy 97 

A wren Riwle 2 

Angler, The Complete 104 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1 

Apollyon, The Fight with [39 

Arcadia 45 

Arcot's Debts, The Nabob of 267 

Areopagitica 1 26 

Art (The) of Con\ C etching 67 

Astrolabe, A Treatise on the 12 

Atheism, Of 79 

Authors, A Club of 263 

Bachelors, On the Great Number of 

( >i.i> Maids and 262 

B \iii e's (Mrs.) Opinions on Whist 340 

I 1 \i rv, Of 85 

Belief, Newman's Theory of 489 

BlOGRAPHIA l.ll'KRARIA 317 

BlaCk, The Man in 258 

Boethius: De Consolatione Philoso- 
phic 13 

Boffin's Bower 441 

I '.(i\IS et Malis, De 95 

Byzantine Palaces 470 

(' 1 SAR 450 

( vptain Singleton, The Life, Adventures, 

and Piracies of 176 

Cat, Nuns M w Keep No Be vst but a 4 

( ' ..ill LODA 275 

Centre of Indifference 373 

Characteristics of Men, Manners,etc. . 197 

Ch vrity 111 

Child's | \) Dream of a Star 440 

Che i) (The) in the House 502 

Chr< »nicle, The Aw.i S wom 1 

(11 [ZEN (A) of the World 255 

Clarissa Harlowe 221 

Clinker, Humphry 251 

Club (A) of Authors 203 

Coleridge, Mr 349 

1 OLi ege, A Proposal for a 2 \ <> 

Commandment (The) or Love to God. .. . 5 

Complete Angler, The 104 



Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. . 357 

Congreve 234 

Consolations Philosophic, De 13 

Conversations, Imaginary 345 

Cony-Catching, The Art of 67 

Crown (The) of Wild Olive 473 

Culture and Anarchy 478 

Daughter (The) of Hippocrates 354 

I >eath, ( )f 75 

l>i u.or.i'K ok Sir Thomas More 29 

Diary (The) of Samuel Pepys 168 

Discoveries made upon Men and Matter . 94 

Dispatch, Of 81 

Drake, The Life of 117 

1 )r wiatic Poesy, An Essay of 146 

Ears, A Chapter on 343 

Ecclesiastical Polity, Of the Laws of. . 54 

Education, Of 120 

Eneydos, Preface to the Booke of 21 

England, The History of 382 

English Proclamation of Henry III 4 

Ess vys (Bacon's) 74 

Euphues vnd his England .'.... 57 

Euphues' ( Joi.den Legacy 60 

Everlasting No, The 370 

Everlasting Yea, The 377 

Fatal Imposture and Force of Words, Of 

the 173 

Floss, The Mill on the 458 

Francois Villon 509 

Freendshd?, Of 82 

Froissart, The Cronycle of Syr John. . . 22 

Gospel of Mathew 9, 34 

Grafton, Letters to the Duke of 292 

Great I'l vk, < >r 78 

( '. reene's Never Too Late 69 

Gro \r's Worth (A) of Wit 64 

( Hull's (The) Hornbook 89 

Head-Dress, The 201 

Henry 111, English Proclamation of 4 

Higden's Polychronicon 11 

I 1 11 r \ USTD SHALUM 205 

Hippocrates, The Daughter of 354 

Holy Dying, The Rule .and Exercises of 136 
542 






INDEX OF TITLES AND SUB-TITLES 



543 



Holy State, The 117 

Homily, An Old English 1 

Hornbook, The Gull's 89 

House, The Child in the 502 

Humourists, The English 425 

Humphry Clinker 251 

Hydriotaphia : Urn-Burial 115 

Idea (The) of a University 409 

Indifference, Centre of 373 

Innocentia, De 95 

Inquiry (An) concerning the Principles 
of Morals 243 

Johnson, Life of Dr. Samuel 277 

Jones, Tom 226 

Junius, Letters of 292 

Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learn- 
ing 409 

Lavengro 417 

Laws (The) of Ecclesiastical Polity. ... 54 

Leviathan 102 

Love, Of 77 

Love, Heroical 97 

Love to God, The Commandment of 5 

" Lyrical Ballads," Preface to 298 

Mabinogion 521 

Man (The) in Black 25S 

Mankind, The Natural Condition of 102 

Marriage and Single Life, Of 76 

Martyrs, Foxe's Book of 41 

Mathew, The Gospel of 9, 34 

Maundevile, Voiage and Travaile of Sir 

John 6 

Melancholy, The Anatomy of 97 

Mill (The) on the Floss 458 

Mirza, The Vision of 203 

Modest Proposal, A 193 

Morals, An Inquiry concerning the Prin- 
ciples of 243 

MORTE D ARTHUR, Le 18 

Mutual Friend, Our 441 

Nabob of Arcot's Debts, The 267 

Nelson, The Life of 321 

Netherlands, Observations upon the. . 143 

Never too Late, Greene's 69 

Newman's Theory of Belief 489 

Nile, The Battle of the 321 

Nuns May Keep No Beast but a Cat 4 

Old English Homily, An 1 

Old Maids and Bachelors, On the 

Great Number of 262 

Olive, The Crown of Wild 473 

Opium-Eater, Confessions of an English 357 

< >ssi \n. Poems of 275 

Ouk \I UTUAL Friend 441 



Palmer's Tale, The 69 

Peredur 521 

Pilgrim's Progress, The 139 

Place, Of Great 78 

Play, The Chinese goes to see a 255 

polychronicon ii 

Preface to the Booke of Eneydos 21 

Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads" 298 

Pride and Prejudice 328 

Printing, A Speech for the Liberty of 

Unlicensed 126 

Proclamation of Henry III, The English 4 

Proposal (A) for a College 216 

Proposal, A Modest 193 

Races of Men, The Two 337 

Rambler, Essays from the 239 

Redgauntlet 308 

Religio Medici 111 

Repressor (The) of Over Much Blaming 

of the Clergy 16 

Revenge, Of 75 

Revolution in France-, Reflections on 

the 270 

Ridley and Latimer, The Behaviour of. . . 41 
Rosalynde : Euphues' Golden Legacy . . 60 
Rule (The) and Exercises of Holy Dying 136 
Rylstone, The White Doe of 320 

St. Mark's 467 

Sartor Resartus 366 

scholem aster, the 38 

Sermon before Edward VI, The First 36 

Shakespeare Nostrati, De 94 

Shandy, Tristram 247 

Singleton, The Life, Adventures, and 

Piracies of Captain 176 

Spectator, The 198, 214 

Speech 2 

Star, A Child's Dream of a 440 

Sterne 425 

Stilo, De 95 

Stones (The) of Venice 463 

Style 95, 492 

Sweetness and Light 478 

Tatler, The 207 

Teufelsdrockh, Sorrows of 366 

Throne, The 463 

Timber 94 

Tom Jones 226 

Traveller, The Unfortunate 86 

Tristram Shandy 247 

Truth, Of 74 

Tub, The Tale of a 184 

Two Races of Men, The 337 

Understanding, Of the Conduct of the 163 

Unfortunate Traveller, The 86 

University, The Idea of a 409 

Urn-Burial 115 

Utility Pleases, Why 243 



544 



INDEX TO TITLES AND SUB-TITLES 



Vanity and Shortness of Man's Life, Of 

THE 6 

Vanity Fair 1A1 

Vanity Fair \\\\ Ao 

Venice, The Stones of. . . . . ' ".'".' A, 

Verulamius, Dominus Q . 

Villon, Francois £1 

Vision (The) of Mirza \ 20? 

Voiage (The) and Travaile of Sir John 

Maundevile 6 



Wanderlng Willie's Tale. . . , o8 

Westminster Abbey, Thoughts in ' ' 
Whist, Mrs. Battle's Opinions on' ' ' \Z 

White Doe (The) of Rylstone. . " ' ' \T Q 
Wild Olive, The Crown of. " ' JZ1 

Wisdom for a Man's Self, Of. . «o 

Wit and Humour, Freedom of. . 
Words, Of the Fatal Imposture 
Force of 



J 97 



Youth and Age, Of. 



I 73 
85 






30 1909 



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